Refugees in Prague: The municipality will move the refugee center to the Congress Center
In the assistance center, people fleeing the war can, among other things, get the necessary documents and accommodation and receive basic humanitarian aid. It started operating in Prague on Tuesday and also provides services for the Central Bohemian Region. On Tuesday, about 200 people checked in. Today, according to the mayor, 185 refugees arrived by 15:00, of which 41 were also accommodated. “It is currently the busiest regional center,” he said. According to him, the foreign police registered 1,200 Ukrainian refugees in Prague today.
According to the mayor, the premises on Mariánské náměstí are not entirely sufficient to provide care for the children of refugees, even though the library has set up a children’s corner for them and today has opened a cinema hall. The mushroom added that the crisis staff was debating more locations to relocate, but the congress center judged them to be appropriate given recent experience when the municipality had located a large covid-19 vaccination center.
At the same time, according to Hřiby, the city withdrew from the original considerations of creating a smaller center in other branches of the Municipal Library. “Experience shows that in the case of Prague, a single central model will be more appropriate,” he said. He added that the Prague Congress Center could handle a similar number of people in the case of simplification of administrative tasks as at the time of vaccination, ie 2000 or more.
Councilor Milena Johnová (Prague Sobě) added that the crisis staff also demanded the presence of employees of labor offices in the center. According to her, they should start on Thursday. “Social workers from employment offices are necessary, I personally regret that they are not there from the beginning and that we have to deal with it later,” she said. The city has also set up a working group, led by John, who will cooperate with non-profit organizations and firefighters in distributing aid among refugees.
Prague has reserved accommodation capacity for Ukrainians, so far, according to the demand from refugees, it seems, according to Hřiby, that people who go to some and most of them have housing. He added that in a few days he expects a wave of people who will have nowhere to go. “We are taking steps to increase accommodation capacity,” he said.
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Refugees who come to the metropolis can use free public transport in Prague and the Central Bohemian Region. To help the city and also houses children’s and youth schools. They will take care not only of education, but also of children’s extracurricular activities. Municipalities have also set aside accommodation facilities for refugees, budget funds for humanitarian aid and organize material and financial collections.
Larger capacity
According to the mayor, compared to the mentioned center in the central building of the library, the capacity of the center in KCP should increase by hundreds of people a day and process documents of thousands of refugees. “We used to check in just over 2,000 doses a day at the metropolitan vaccination center (against covid-19), so I don’t think it should be a problem to get to these numbers even now,” Hřib said.
The advantage of KCP is that it is direct at metro station C Vyšehrad. There are information stands at Central Station and Florence on the same line. With them, people get information on where to go. Refugees then have free public transport. “If a large group shows up, of course it will be possible to negotiate a pick-up through the crisis staff’s operations center,” Hřib said.
At the city library on Wednesday, officials helped 193 people fleeing Ukraine and 53 of them were also interested in accommodation. “On Wednesday afternoon, we also managed to expand the capacity of the center to other parts and to the tent on Mariánské náměstí. This could have strengthened the individual workplaces, “said Vít Hofman, a spokesman for the municipality.