The Diplomat
Spain has exceeded 160,000 temporary protections to refugees due to the war in Ukraine, when more than ten months have passed since the beginning of the war conflict, as reported yesterday by the Ministry of Interior.
Since its activation last March 10 and until the closing of this Wednesday, the Office of Asylum and Refuge (OAR) of the Ministry of Interior and the National Police have processed and granted a total of 160,756 protections to Ukrainian refugees in our country.
“This figure places Spain among the European countries that have granted more protections to citizens and residents in Ukraine,” according to Interior. All this has been possible “thanks to the mechanism put in place urgently by the Spanish Government on March 10 to comply with the European Union agreement, with which, for the first time in history, the application of the Temporary Protection Directive was authorized,” it added.
63.47 percent of the people who have obtained this temporary protection are women (102,034) and 36.53 percent are men (58,722). By age bracket, 33.69 percent are under 18 years old, 25.33 percent are between 19 and 35 years old, 34.17 percent are between 36 and 64, and 6.8 percent are over 65 years old.
In addition, most of the people who have obtained temporary protection, 98.31 percent, are citizens of Ukrainian nationality, while the remaining 1.69 percent correspond to citizens of other nationalities who were legally residing in Ukrainian territory when the war broke out.
Comunidad Valenciana (42,739), Catalonia (36,641), Madrid (22,963) and Andalusia (22,939) are the autonomous communities in which more temporary protections have been processed and granted. The mechanism activated by the Asylum and Refuge Office (OAR) of the Ministry of the Interior allows temporary protection to be granted within 24 hours of the application. In addition, all temporary protections processed entail a residence permit and, for those of legal age, a work permit. In addition, under the provisions of the General Directorate of Traffic, displaced persons who obtain temporary protection can legally use their driving licenses in Spain for at least one year.
