Centre for Ukrainian Refugees in Varna calls for help
The Centre for Ukrainian Refugees in Varna, which was opened a few days ago, is calling for help.
The centre, set up in Varna’s Palace of Culture and Sports, needs food, water, clothing, sanitary items and supplies for young children and babies, and anyone who wants to help can do so, it said.
There are more than 1000 people at the centre.
“We need nappies of all sizes, as well as cribs for mothers with young children. We also need pillows,” local media quoted a volunteer at the centre as saying.
Those willing to offer items needed or who may provide accommodation should telephone 0898 909 968.
In other news in Bulgaria related to Putin’s war on Ukraine:
Since the beginning of the military conflict in Ukraine, close to 37 000 people fleeing the war had crossed into Bulgaria as of March 6, State Agency for Refugees head Petya Purvanova told Bulgarian National Radio.
Purvanova said that about 60 to 70 per cent were in transit.
She said that to date, there had been 146 official registrations of people seeking international protection in Bulgaria.
“The implementation of the European Temporary Protection Directive will become a reality in Bulgaria in a few days,” Purvanova said.
So far, there have been applications to the Tourism Ministry from private places of accommodation and state facilities for state aid for housing 1200 refugees, the head of Parliament’s committee on tourism, Ilin Dimitrov, told Bulgarian National Television on March 7.
Dimitrov, of the We Continue the Change party, said that the government was considering three options for assistance to Ukrainian refugees in Bulgaria.
These include covering board in hotels or state holiday resorts, compensation only for shelter without food, as well as assistance for Bulgarians who have taken Ukrainian refugees into their homes.
The measure would be ready in a day or two and would be announced on the Tourism Ministry’s website, Dimitrov said.
All three types of compensation would be valid retroactively over three months.
In a day or two, the overall aid system for Ukrainian refugees would be clear, Dimitrov he. It must be set up in such a way that it would not allow abuses, he said.
He could not say what this aid would cost and where the money would come from. “That question will be answered by the Ministry of Finance,” Dimitrov said.
The Plovdiv District Prosecutor’s Office has begun an investigation following media reports that a woman in the city had tried to defraud a volunteer organisation, claiming that a mother and child from Ukraine in a Plovdiv village needed help.
Prosecutors had established that there were no Ukranian refugees in the village, and that the call had come from within the city of Plovdiv itself, the statement said.
(Photo: Varna municipality)
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