One in three Ukrainian refugees feel part of the community in their host country, while the same number would like to return home to Ukraine, Politico writes, citing a survey published on Tuesday by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).
“As the war drags on, we need to put in place effective long-term measures that allow host societies and displaced people to adapt to the upheaval resulting from this war,” said the director of FRA, Michael O’Flaherty.
The article says that 14,685 Ukrainian refugees living in ten EU countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain) responded to the agency’s online survey between August and September 2022.
Although almost half reported feeling depressed, 61 per cent said they had been feeling optimistic about the future since arriving in their host country.
Yet, with only a third of respondents in paid employment, 79 per cent said they faced financial difficulties.
Language is the main obstacle to getting a job: A quarter said they did not speak the language of the country they now lived in, while 41 per cent said they did, but poorly.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February created the largest refugee crisis seen on the Continent since World War II. According to data from the U.N. Refugee Agency, more than 8 million Ukrainian refugees fled to another European country since the beginning of the war, and about 4.8 million have applied to a temporary protection scheme in a EU country.