Illustration photo – On March 6, 2022, people wait in a long line in front of the Prague center for Ukrainian refugees in the Congress Center in Vyšehrad.
Prague/Brussels – 37 percent of people who fled the country attacked by Russia before the war plan to return to Ukraine from the Czech Republic. Roughly the same share wants to stay, or stay and regularly commute to Ukraine, a fifth do not yet know how they will proceed. This follows from a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in ten EU countries, which took place last year at the turn of August and September. Includes responses from approximately 14,500 people. He also showed that almost 38 percent of women and 45 percent of Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic had a paid job at the time of the survey, which is slightly above the survey average. 78 percent of respondents in the Czech Republic had problems making ends meet.
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The Czech Republic hosts the highest number of Ukrainian war refugees per capita. In more than a year since last February 24, when the Russian army invaded Ukraine, the Ministry of the Interior has granted visas for temporary protection to more than 490,000 refugees. About a third of them are children. According to the estimates of the Ministry of the Interior, about a fifth of them returned home to Ukraine. More accurate data on how many refugees are actually in the Czech Republic will enable registration to extend protection by one year. By February 20, 230,000 refugees had registered, they have until the end of March. According to a survey by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), almost three quarters of refugees from Ukraine planned to return home last fall.
Almost a quarter of immigrants from Ukraine surveyed in the Czech Republic feel that they do not receive equal treatment in the Czech Republic. 44 percent rarely encountered such an approach, 29 percent never. 54 percent of refugees live privately in the Czech Republic, which roughly corresponds to the average of the survey, about a fifth live in hotel-type accommodation and nine percent live in a house or apartment provided by the authorities. 55 percent of survey participants pay fully or partially for accommodation, 43 percent lived without paying at the time of the survey. In Romania, almost two-thirds of refugees did not pay for housing, in Italy and Slovakia more than half.
The Czech Republic, together with Slovakia and Poland, belongs to the countries where refugees have the least problems understanding the local language. According to their statements, approximately a quarter of the visitors spoke Czech poorly, 44 percent spoke poorly, and 18 percent did not speak at all. For example, in Estonia, almost two-thirds of Ukrainians were unable to communicate at all, and in Germany, 40 percent. 44 percent of refugees attended or are still attending Czech language courses, this proportion was higher only in Spain with more than half of the people in Spanish courses, the same as in the Czech Republic and in Germany. In Hungary, on the other hand, only 13 percent of refugees from Ukraine attended Hungarian language courses.
23 percent of refugees in the Czech Republic found it very difficult to make ends meet, the same proportion had difficulty making ends meet. Roughly a third had some problem making ends meet at the time of the survey. 35 percent of refugees in the Czech Republic had income from work, which is above the survey average. Savings were used by 26 percent, help from family in Ukraine by 24 percent, pension by 13 percent, and borrowed money by a tenth. In the Czech Republic, 41 percent of Ukrainian refugees reported social benefits as part of their income, this proportion was higher only in Germany.
Almost half of the survey participants in the Czech Republic faced problems accessing health care due to lack of knowledge of the language. 31 percent did not know how to get healthcare, i.e. where to go or whom to contact. At the time of the survey, roughly a fifth of Ukrainians stated that they had not yet tried to use health care.
The report is based on a survey in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. The refugees were interviewed between August 22 and September 29, 2022. In the Czech Republic, 671 Ukrainians aged 12 and over took part in the survey, 90 percent of respondents were women and girls.
