BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The Federal Ministry for Family Affairs wants to create a central coordination office for the accommodation of refugee orphans from the Ukraine. The ministry announced this on Monday.
With the nationwide coordination, the ministry wants to help the federal states and municipalities to control the accommodation and care of this group of refugees and their carers, it said. The coordination center will be “set up and start work as soon as possible,” a spokeswoman said when asked by the dpa. Concluding talks with the federal states and other cooperation partners would be held this week.
The contact point will be “permanently in contact” with the federal states and municipalities and will continuously ask about accommodation capacities in order to get an overview of the available accommodation, wrote the Ministry for Family Affairs. The office will then arrange suitable accommodation in the countries centrally.
In doing so, she will “also take special needs such as disabilities or serious illnesses of children and young people into account,” explained Federal Minister for Family Affairs Anne Spiegel (Greens).
The new office should also serve as an information and advice platform for all authorities, sponsors, initiatives and private individuals who want to help Ukrainian orphans in Germany.
There was initially no information on how many orphans and carers could have arrived in Germany so far.
Berlin’s youth and family senator, Astrid-Sabine Busse, had previously called for closer cooperation between the federal and state governments when taking in particularly needy refugees from Ukraine. In this context, Busse also suggested the establishment of a central contact point especially for orphans. “With all the commitment and the great solidarity that there is in the city, I would like to see coordination at the federal level,” said Busse on Monday./faa/DP/ngu