The UN Information Office and UNHCR arranged a lecture of Mr. Vanno Noupech at the secondary school #155 in Kyiv which was delivered to eleventh and twelfth graders. Mr. Noupech, who himself is a survivor of the genocide in Cambodia, had been forced to become a child soldier during the Civil War in Cambodia. Later he joined the UN Refugee Agency to be a humanitarian worker and served in the UNHCR emergency teams in many hot spots, including Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide. Currently, Mr. Vanno Noupech serves as the UNHCR Deputy Regional Representative for the Republic of Belarus, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.

     Kyiv (Ukraine) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees continues to be concerned about the situation of a Kyrgyz national who was denied access to Ukrainian territory in Boryspil airport where she arrived by the flight from Kazakhstan on 29 March 2012. The Kyrgyz national stated to border guards of Ukraine as well as to the UN Refugee Agency that she was afraid of being returned to the Kyrgyz Republic, or to Kazakhstan, because she fears persecution on the basis of her former political activities. According to the information received by the UN Refugee Agency directly from her, she expressed her wish to seek asylum in Ukraine, but the State Border Guard Service refused to hand over her application for asylum to the State Migration Service.  Instead she was kept in the transit zone with her small child for some twelve hours, and then put on a flight to Georgia, despite the fact that the authorities had become aware that she was holding an invalid travel document.   

    Kyiv (Ukraine) – 21 March, UNHCR Regional Representative met with Ms O. Lukash, Advisor of the President, President’s Representative at the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and informed her about challenges that asylum seekers and refugees are facing in Ukraine and UNHCR’s role in identifying durable solutions to their problems.