Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, 5 million people have passed through Lviv. At the end of March and the beginning of April, a total of two million Ukrainians lived in the city.
The mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, told about this in an interview with Ukrinform.
"Imagine that: there was a population of 800 thousand, and here it suddenly increased to two million. Two hundred thousand Ukrainians from other regions lived in Lviv for three months. Now we accept 150 thousand. This is a big burden on the infrastructure, but it is our duty, because they all are our family," noted Sadovy.
According to him, approximately 50 000 people are ready to stay in Lviv for permanent residence, because they have nowhere to go.
"We are talking about people from Mariupol, Melitopol, Severodonetsk and other cities — these are those who lost their homes altogether or their homes are currently under temporary occupation. And 50 000 people is roughly one million square meters of space, which is roughly € 800 million that needs to be found," added the mayor.
He suggests that a new wave of evacuations may begin.
"For example, the mayor of Pokrovska wrote a letter: he asks to accept, if possible, 30 thousand people. And we are working on it," Sadovy assured and added that now the displaced people no longer live in the schools of the Lviv community.
"They were relocated to other locations to prepare educational institutions for the new full-time academic year. We also have locations that we are currently rebuilding for people to live in. These are institutions that did not work before," the mayor summed up.