Grand Tour of Twenty-Four Illegal Migrants Cut Short at Boryspil Airport
Last Monday twenty-four illegal migrants detained last year on the territory of Ukraine were deported home by flight 102 bound for Delhi via Tashkent. Tellingly, it is the first deportation of such a large group of illegal aliens. As Volodymyr Tunik, chief of the anti-illegal migration section at the State Border Security Committee, told journalists, it is very difficult to carry out deportation due to lack of funds, “for tickets to such countries as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, from where most migrants arrive, are expensive.” According to him, the current state budget is absolutely devoid of funds not only for deportation but also for the maintenance of illegal migrants on Ukraine’s territory. It will be noted that the minimal per diem allowance for one illegal is about five hryvnias, while they have to stay on in Ukraine for up to a year because it takes much time to find out where those seeking their fortune came from (for most of them have no documents when being detained by border guards or law-enforcers – Author). For example, it took border guards up to five months to identify some of the mentioned deportees and their country of residence.
Meanwhile, border guards say the number of illegal migrants is now clearly on the decline, which is confirmed by the statistics: 4620 people were detained last year, almost a thousand fewer than in 2000. Most of the illegals are, as before, citizens of India, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.
However, while border guards face no special difficulties with detention, the problem of deportation is still unsolved. For example, it is sometimes very difficult to hand over an illegal migrant to Russia or Belarus, from where most of them arrive. The situation becomes especially aggravated when the arrest was made not on the border or the frontier area but in the hinterland: the neighboring countries’ border guards demand irrefutable evidence that the arrested really got into Ukraine from their territory. Under these conditions, only about 20% of those detained were returned last year to the transit countries, such as Russia, Belarus, and Moldova, leaving us to think what to do with the others, Mr. Tunik says. “We were at least lucky that the Embassy of India helped us repatriate this group and paid for the tickets. But this kind of thing occurs rather seldom,” he says. “So some migrants have to stay here for up to a year.” Yet, the illegals themselves do not seem to be too afraid of this situation. One of them, who refused to disclose his name, said he had paid $8000 to get to Germany. After staying for some time in Moscow, he was brought by car and train to Ukraine, where he was eventually detained. On returning to his homeland, he will again try to go West, this time legally, he promises.
