The number of Ukrainian refugees in Azerbaijan has decreased

Baku/21.05.22/ Turan: The head of one of the organizations of Ukrainians in Azerbaijan, Baku businessman Lidia Shestak-Aliyeva, from the first day of Russian aggression against Ukraine, has been organizing assistance to refugees from her country. There are several “Baku” Ukrainian women next to her, they themselves earn money and collect help for refugees. “I don’t have a personal life for ninety days, I don’t see my child,” she complained in a conversation with Turan.

In the last two months, humanitarian aid from Azerbaijanis has lessened, the flow has dried up, compared to the first month of the war. Lydia calls this an objective event, since "the people cannot carry clothes, medicine and food to the Ukrainian embassy every day for 90 days. The severity of the event has fallen, some Azerbaijanis have taken people from Ukraine under their care."

As a result, volunteer opportunities have been reduced. Lydia says that their opportunities are limited, the organization cannot help Ukrainian refugees in the same way as in Europe, where assistance is funded by states.

“In Azerbaijan, the state does not provide medical and financial assistance to Ukrainians. We, Ukrainians in Baku, help visitors from what we earn ourselves. There is no state social package for Ukrainian refugees in Azerbaijan, like in Europe. Sometimes they refuse to accept used clothes. We lose heart when we hear offensive remarks from visitors. I am ready to provide advice, explain how you can come here and what people in Azerbaijan will face. But we are not able to provide Ukrainians with quality housing, permanent financial and food products, or obtain a status for them in the State Migration Service," Lidia Shestak-Aliyeva said.

The head of the Azerbaijan-Ukraine parliamentary group of the Milli Majlis, deputy Rufat Guliyev works closely with the Ukraine-Azerbaijan parliamentary group of the Ukrainian Rada, organizing assistance to refugees from Ukraine. Thanks to the activity of the deputies, tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis were taken out from Kyiv and other regions to Istanbul, and from there by bus to Baku; or from Ukraine to Moldova, from there by plane to Baku. All students were taken out of Azerbaijan. During the evacuation, preference was given to families with children, women, war veterans.

Guliyev named the leaders of Azerbaijani organizations in Ukraine who did a great job of saving Azerbaijanis, organizing "green corridors" for the removal of the population, helping people with medical treatment, food, and medicines. The most famous case is the evacuation from Ukraine of the family of the national hero of Azerbaijan, martyr of the first Karabakh war, pilot Viktor Seregin. The family now lives in Baku, the daughter is employed at the Economic University (Baku), the family has received a legal status. Guliyev personally took part in the history of this family.

The embassy and consulate of Azerbaijan (Kyiv) and the State Committee for Diaspora Affairs (Baku) do a great job of assisting Azerbaijanis in Ukraine, Rufat Guliyev said. He named the leaders of the Azerbaijani diaspora, who work daily to solve the problems of Azerbaijanis in Ukraine: co-chairs of the deputy group in the Rada Valery Viktorovich Koukh and Vladimir Viktorovich Kreytenko. Oleg Krapivin, co-founder of the Rada of Ukrainian Azerbaijanis and head of the Kyiv Azerbaijanis Congress, philanthropist Oleg Krapivin, head of the diaspora organization Jeyhun Mammadov and businessman Ahmedzade Magamed Mahiyaddin oglu, take an active part in the evacuation, Rufat Guliyev said.

"People turned to us for help around the clock, found out our contacts from friends and called with a variety of requests. But we didn't always manage to save people.We could not help families left in the Ukrainian cities blocked by the Russian army (Kherson, Mariupol). We try to involve citizens Azerbaijan, because they are not able to help everyone," the deputy added. He noted a significant decrease in the flow of refugees from Ukraine.

Rufat Guliyev noted the hard work of the Azerbaijani diplomatic mission in Ukraine and the State Committee for the Affairs of the Azerbaijani Diaspora, expressed gratitude for the accurate work of Azerbaijani civil servants, who quickly and smoothly resolved the issues of evacuation and settling in Baku of the family of the late pilot, hero of Azerbaijan Seregin. He said that the lack of bureaucratic obstacles to those who did not have Ukrainian documents can be considered help from the warring Ukrainian state. It is surprising, but in Ukraine there are many people living on old Soviet passports.

Honorary Consul of Azerbaijan in Kharkov, Afgan Salmanov, in an interview with Turan, said that despite the significant damage to the consulate building from a Russian shell, he and his assistants are doing their duties around the clock, every day, taking hundreds of calls, solving new problems.

Salmanov's sphere of activity includes six Ukrainian regions - Kharkiv, Sumy (the Sumy region has the longest border with the Russian Federation - 580 km), Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, Chernihiv, Poltava. "If we cannot help the Azerbaijani residents of these regions, we turn to the Azerbaijani embassy in Kyiv," Salmanov explained.

We asked the honorary consul about life in Kharkiv. According to him, after the defeat of the Russian troops around this city, life is slowly returning. About 5,000 residents of the city returned. First come the Ukrainians, who have their own land, to sow and cultivate it. But factories do not work, some institutions have opened. Intense battles continue in the Izyum direction, military operations have decreased in Chernihiv, shelling continues in Sumy and other regions, Afgan Salmanov said.