Twenty-two percent of the residents of Donbas who left the region after the conflict began, plans to return as soon as peace is established, 21 percent said they may return, and 36 percent said they have no intention of returning, the National Monitoring System on the Socio-Economic Characteristics of Internally Displaced Persons said in its report.
One percent of the respondents said they intend to return in the near future, 19 percent were undecided, and one percent did not answer the question.
The percentage of those who have no intention of returning is “higher among those who are now living far from the territories uncontrolled by Ukraine,” the report said. The percentage of people who have visited the uncontrolled territories after being displaced is 49 percent.
Among the reasons why displaced persons visit uncontrolled territories after being displaced are visits and upkeep on housing (74 percent), visits to friends or family (52 percent), collecting property (21 percent), family events, such as weddings or funerals (10 percent), looking into the possibility of returning (4 percent), property transactions, such as the sale of, and signing leases (3 percent), for other reasons (1 percent). One percent of the respondents did not answer the question.
At the same time, among the reasons displaced people do not visit the uncontrolled territories after being displaced are risks to life (47 percent), the absence of a particular need (33 percent), the lack of money to do so (23 percent), health reasons (16 percent), political motives (17 percent), the absence of friends or relatives on those territories (9 percent), and for other reasons (2 percent). Five percent of the respondents did not answer the question.
The most significant problems of visits to uncontrolled territories, according to displaced persons, are waiting on the contact line, high costs, and bad transportation.
Fifty-seven percent of the internally displaced persons said they would vote in their place of residence in the next local election if they could, 25 percent said they would not vote, and 16 percent said they do not know.
Forty-seven percent of the displaced persons said they intend to vote in the next presidential and parliamentary election, 32 percent said they have no intention of voting, 19 percent said they do not know, and one percent did not answer the question.
The monitoring was conducted by the International Organization for Migration in all regions of Ukraine controlled by the Ukrainian government in April-June 2019. In particular, 4,073 internally displaced persons were interviewed by phone and 2,401 were interviewed in person. In addition, 1,255 people who cross the division line were interviewed in person in May 2019.
The National Monitoring System is conducted by the UN Migration Agency (IOM in partnership with the ministry on issues relating to the temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons and the Ukrainian Social Policy Ministry.
