About 150,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have returned to temporarily occupied territories, including up to 70,000 to the temporarily occupied Mariupol.
This was reported by Maksym Tkachenko, a Member of Parliament and member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights, De-occupation, and Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, National Minorities, and Interethnic Relations, in an interview with Ukrinform.
“Approximately 150,000 internally displaced persons have already returned to the temporarily occupied territories,” he informed.
The MP noted that according to available data, 200,000 Mariupol residents fled their city, escaping the war brought by Russia to Ukrainian land. “At the same time, every third one of them returned home, to Mariupol, to occupation.”
“According to estimates, this is approximately 67,000 to 70,000 people. In my opinion, these are horrifying figures,” Tkachenko emphasized.
He added that IDPs make the decision to return to the temporarily occupied territories due to not receiving adequate support and assistance from the state and finding it difficult to integrate into new communities.
As Ukrinform reported, the number of internally displaced persons continues to rise, especially due to enemy advances and mandatory evacuations from combat zones. Currently, there are five million displaced persons in Ukraine.
Source: About 150K IDPs return to temporarily occupied territories
