Refugees to receive apartments

Four apartments rehabilitated to shelter refugees fleeing human rights abuse and conflict in their home countries - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Palestine - were given today, June 12, to local authorities in Razeni, Ialoveni district by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Info-Prim Neo reports. “Without the enthusiastic support of the mayors, council and residents of Mereni and Razeni villages, which offered the dilapidated buildings to UNHCR for renovation into apartments, this pilot refugee housing project would not have been possible,” said UNHCR Representative Peter Kessler. Tuesday’s ceremony at the long-disused kindergarten follows a similar event in March when UNHCR formally handed over apartments at a former public bathhouse in Mereni, Anenii Noi district to shelter refugees from Armenia, Russia and Sudan. According to a press release from UNHCR, the refugees getting the new apartments were carefully selected based on their skills and willingness to contribute to their new host communities by a team including the Refugee Directorate of the Bureau for Migration and Asylum in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, UNHCR and its NGO implementing partners. Refugee families participating in the scheme will contribute to the upkeep of their new home and pay their utility bills, but will live rent-free for up to five years under an agreement worked out with the local authorities. Vulnerable refugees residing in Chisinau, Briceni, Cimislia, Criuleni, Rabnita, and Tiraspol benefited from in-kind grants consisting of household equipment (stoves, refrigerators, radiators, boilers, etc.) to ensure a basic standard of living, while 19 carefully selected refugee families (residing in Chisinau, Bender, Briceni and Cimislia) received small business start-up grants of up to €2,000 to help them become self-reliant.