More than 20,000 people from Ukraine have already sought refuge in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. And given the constant Russian shelling, more refugees are expected. Their accommodation demands everything from the municipalities in MV.
Schwerin (dpa/mv) – Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) sees the federal government as having a major responsibility in providing further accommodation for refugees from Ukraine. “We all have challenges to overcome when it comes to accommodation, whether city-states or non-city states. That’s why we turned to the federal government to check again which federal real estate it has to accommodate refugees there,” Schwesig told the German Press Agency in Schwerin.
In 2015 and 2016, vacant Bundeswehr barracks in the north-east, such as in Basepohl (Mecklenburg Lake District), were also used to house the then large number of refugees – especially from Syria and Afghanistan. As then, the stock of apartments for the decentralized accommodation of refugees is now exhausted in many places, and collective accommodation is often full. Several districts and municipalities in the north-east have therefore already made it clear to the state government that their capacities are exhausted.
“I am very grateful that the cities and counties have made a large number of places available so that we can enable Ukrainian refugees to find shelter here,” said Schwesig. Because of the ongoing Russian attacks on the infrastructure in Ukraine, which is important for the electricity and heat supply, she assumes that many people will leave their homes again in the winter months. “We can be happy and grateful that we live here in peace. Unfortunately, that’s not possible for the Ukrainians. That means we have a responsibility,” explained Schwesig.
But she sees the high burden on site. “It is of course a great effort to provide the places and to ensure the care of the children in daycare centers and schools,” said the head of government. That is why the country’s crisis management team has been in regular contact with representatives of the municipalities since the beginning of the war in order to assess developments and derive measures.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is also one of the few federal states that assume the costs of refugee accommodation. Schwesig rated the use of sports halls as “an emergency solution that you have to use when there are no other options”.
According to the Schwerin Ministry of the Interior, more than 22,000 people from Ukraine registered as war refugees in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania by the end of 2022. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) also identifies around 4,300 asylum seekers for the north-east, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan. This means that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania took in more people in 2022 than in 2015.
According to a report in the “Schweriner Volkszeitung”, 19 of the 27 community accommodations in the districts and urban districts were already overcrowded in October. Accommodation is considered to be overcrowded when more than 75 percent of the occupancy rate is due to ethnic, cultural, religious or family reasons.
