The return of over a million people displaced by the Ukrainian crisis to Russia will happen once there is a political solution of the conflict, Magne Barth, head of the Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the Russian Federation, Belarus and Moldova said at the "Migration and International Law" conference on Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th September, 2018) The return of over a million people displaced by the Ukrainian crisis to Russia will happen once there is a political solution of the conflict, Magne Barth, head of the Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the Russian Federation, Belarus and Moldova said at the "Migration and International Law" conference on Wednesday.
"The return to Donbas of all of these displaced people is going to happen when there is a political solution ... The displacement into Russia has been around 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 million people and it seems to me that relatively few people have gone back, although people go back and forth to check on their houses, to check on things they have there," Barth said.
The military operation in eastern Ukraine was launched by Kiev in 2014, after residents of the region refused to recognize the new Ukrainian government. In 2015, a ceasefire agreement brokered by the leaders of the Normandy Four group (France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine) was reached in Minsk, but the situation has remained tense, with both sides accusing each other of violating the truce.
The conflict urged hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes. The vast majority of refugees found shelter in neighboring Russia.
