The National Court for the Right of Asylum (CNDA) has just granted asylum to Ukrainian nationals from regions located at the heart of the armed conflict with Russia, a conflict whose degree of violence justifies, according to it, “the granting of international protection” to the persons concerned. The CNDA “has just granted asylum to Ukrainian nationals from the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Zaporijjia”, without specifying the number of people concerned, it said in a press release published on Saturday.
A situation of “blind violence of exceptional intensity”
“It notes that these regions are currently experiencing a situation of indiscriminate violence of exceptional intensity due to the armed conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces. This situation justifies the granting of international protection to Ukrainian applicants from these regions” , she explains.
The Court had received applications for international protection from Ukrainian nationals originating from these four regions, filed before the offensive by Russian troops on February 24, 2022. They therefore did not benefit from the temporary European protection granted to Ukrainians who left their country after the start of the conflict.
Protection for civilians
It “considered that the applicants could not benefit from refugee status under the Geneva Convention of July 28, 1951”, but granted them “the benefit of subsidiary protection which makes it possible to protect civilians in the event of a conflict situation international armed forces as the conflict prevailing in these regions”. Subsidiary protection is international protection provided to an asylum seeker who does not meet the criteria to become a refugee.
The Court explains that it “examined the situation on the date on which it rules on the basis of the most recent public sources”. However, “this analysis led the asylum judge to consider that the current situation in the regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Zaporijjia, located in the east and south of Ukraine, reached a level of indiscriminate violence ‘exceptional intensity’.
“This situation justifies the Court granting subsidiary protection to each of the applicants solely on the basis of their origin from the region concerned”. It “considered that these applicants would run a real risk of suffering a serious and individual threat to their life or person if they returned to their region and that they would not be able to benefit from any effective protection from the authorities”.