1000 days of war in Ukraine - interview with Mr. Pablo Zapata (UNHCR)

As the world marks 1,000 days since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Pablo Zapata, Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Romania, shared his insights in an exclusive interview with the AIDRom team. Reflecting on the immense challenges faced by those displaced by the conflict and the collective efforts to provide support, Zapata highlighted the crucial role of solidarity, resilience, and international cooperation in addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

AIDRom: What were the main challenges you faced in the early days of the crisis and how have they evolved over time?

Pablo Zapata: In the beginning of the crisis, the main effort looking in retrospect, what we were all trying to do, starting with authorities, then civil society, international organizations like ours and the population, was ensuring that the basic needs of those arriving were met. The objective was that there would be nobody sleeping without a roof and nobody going to bed hungry. So, there were enormous efforts on the administrative side, as well as on the side of humanitarian assistance that our efforts congregate.

From our part, we had the need to grow rapidly. This was a small office in Europe, like other UNHCR offices in the region and we had to expand our activities fast, at the pace of arrivals and along with the authorities Expectations.

Our contribution was not only a material one but a compressive program, offering legal assistance and guidance, opening the Blue Dot safe spaces for support and protection of children and families, at the borders, and a number of services for child protection, to ensure that there would be no instances of human trafficking, and so on. But the main role was to understand how a refugee emergency will develop in the industrialized world. UNHCR is more used to working in other parts of the world, not in the European Union in terms of massive arrivals and emergency response. We had to adapt a lot to ensure that we are here to support the national response and contribute to what was already in place. Our role was also to share our knowledge and experiences of what it is like to work with refugees, which is different from working with the local population when faced with an emergency.

The refugee perspective, the refugee angle and the specificities of what we have learned over so many years, serving refugees, this is what we brought to the situation, along with the programs that I mentioned beforehand.

The other aspect we brought in, very challenging at the time, was to ensure a coordinated response by all humanitarian actors. The government started very early its own coordination structures and they were very effective. We needed to pair that and create synergies with the governmental institutions to provide an integrated assistance of the humanitarian community whose interest in helping was growing constantly.   Our joint coordination efforts were immense in a context where there so many organizations national and international decided to include refugees in their programs from one day to another, -this was challenging at a time where there was also donor attention to this crisis.

Together, we had to ensure that we were growing harmonically and organically, in a way that would be sustainable. A remarkable feature of this refugee situation is the fact that Romania was the first country to plan for the medium- and long-term solutions, while still providing an emergency response.

This is why, very soon into the emergency we started to discuss with different ministries, with chancellors, with the prime minister, foreign affairs, and others on the policies that the government intended to implement in support of the refugees holding temporary protection.  And that’s another particularity of the Ukraine refugee situation, the common legal status -temporary protection status-provided by the/in the European Union. All these elements coming together made it a very complex process, a process where we should not forget that the focus was on the immediate needs of people arriving, some of them already survivors of torture and sexual violence, some traumatized by what they were seeing in their country by the continuous bombing, children traumatized and so on.

That was the context of the early days, but as we are progressively entering into a more predictable situation, the refugee numbers stabilize.  When we say stabilized, we should not forget that up to today, there are still about 4,000 – 4,500 refugees requesting temporary protection, monthly in Romania. This is still a big number because the situation in Ukraine is not what it should be, people still feel a degree of unsafety and they are still escaping the Russian invasion.

AIDROM: How are the UNHCR-supported projects implemented by AIDRom helping with the integration of Ukrainians in the western part of the country?

Pablo Zapata: Well, first let me say that AIDROM is delivering one of the most relevant parts of UNHCR’s work and it has been for so many years, way before the Ukraine Emergency. From day one, we knew that we could rely on AIDROM, their expertise and capacity as well, to expand, and start covering critical areas of the refugee response. We should also remember when one tends to forget that the first enrolment capacity came through AIDROM, given its flexibility to expand its operations, and to start enrolling refugees. Eventually, thanks to AIDRom’ s ecumenical work, they facilitated the hosting of the first enrolment center, other than the AIDROM office, in the building of the Romanian Orthodox Church Patriarchy, which was remarkable.

Another area where we have increasingly relied on AIDROM was the covering of the protection needs and protection services, including some direct assistance delivery in the Western part of the country. AIDRom helped us cover several counties in the Western part of the country, where AIDROM undertook these tasks with lots of professionalism, care, and long-term vision, in terms of empowering people rather than make them dependent on assistance. Their work includes several programs related to psychosocial support, basic needs, and a specific cash assistance program managed by AIDROM, which requires a level of complexity, which is not what every organization is able to tackle. In general, we also benefit very much from the knowledge, the advice, and the support of AIDROM to UNHCR.

AIDRom: What do you foresee for the future of the Ukrainian community in Romania?

Pablo Zapata: The future of the Ukrainian community really depends on the future of the war in Ukraine. The war has not ceased in any way, we see it happening every day. Just a few days ago, I was accompanying, along with other representatives from the region, our Deputy High Commissioner, in Ukraine, reaching areas close to those directly affected. We went to Kharkiv, and other parts of Ukraine and you can see there very, very clearly there is no stabilization. There is still a war on Ukraine. There are still people being evacuated, as those that we saw in a governmental reception facility, who were evacuated in minibuses as we were visiting, and that happens every day in this area. So, in those conditions, to visualize the future or what comes next for refugees, is as difficult for us as it is for them. There are some people who have returned. There are some people who are still going out of the country, so it is still a fluid situation. We hope, as well as refugees hope to go back sooner rather than later, once conditions allow, in conditions of safety and in a dignified way. One must understand that inside Ukraine, authorities are making an enormous job in trying to provide services, assistance to displaced persons, so to add, if refugees were to return so suddenly and massively, that would add complexity to the efforts the authorities are undertaking nowadays.

At the same time, we have seen the figures of our latest intention survey that UNHCR carries twice a year and the number of refugees expressing hopes to return are extremely, very, very high. Those already making plans to return in the coming 12 months and those who would like to return one day, make up over 70 percent of the refugees. And that is also a common feature in all the border countries. People who are staying in border countries are really expecting to return as soon as possible, but we have people here coming from occupied territories, we have persons who have lost their houses, their livelihood, and it’s difficult for them to foresee their return. So, while we are hoping for the return, we will accompany refugees in that process when the time comes. In the meantime, we continue working day in day out on the inclusion in Romania. Romania as they say, is their home, until they can return to Ukraine, and we must be sure that these are not lost years for refugees, that they gain skills, and experiences, that children continue their education in a way that when they return to Ukraine, they can be or continue being a contribution to their country. In the meantime, as we see it every day, they are being, and they will continue to be a contribution to Romania.

AIDRom: What message would you like to share with Ukrainians currently living in Romania and those that are still in Ukraine?

Pablo Zapata: It’s difficult to say anything to Ukrainians who are remaining in Ukraine, it is the uncertainty of the daily aerial alerts, the uncertainty -and we just saw two days ago- the massive attacks by air on infrastructure but also on civilians. One of the places where I was in the suburbs of Kharkiv, had suffered a major attack, killing four people, six days before our arrival there. So, I wouldn’t dare to give any message to Ukrainians in Ukraine other than expressing support for their resilience, for their enormous capacity.

For refugees in Romania, it is really a message of hope. There will be the possibility of returning, but until then, make every effort to be included in the Romanian society. Ukraine has chosen a path to join the European Union. Here there are several practices, skills, a setting of the European Union, that they will bring back when returning that will help Ukraine advancing in their integration process into the European Union, make the best of your lives. This is not, as I was saying before, a parenthesis. This is something to be lived fully, and to acquire as many experiences as possible and knowledge and skills which then to return one day.