ARMENIAN REFUGEE POPULATION DWINDLES AS PEOPLE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000970 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EUR/CARC, PRM USEMBASSY MOSCOW FOR REFUGEE COORDINATOR TIM RICHARDSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2016 TAGS: PREF PREL PGOV PHUM AJ AM SUBJECT: ARMENIAN REFUGEE POPULATION DWINDLES AS PEOPLE NATURALIZE OR LEAVE Classified By: Amb. John M. Evans for reasons 1.4 (b, d). -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Armenia's refugee population has dwindled enormously since hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians fled across the border from Azerbaijan, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) statistics. UNHCR Representative Peter Nicolaus told us preliminary results from the Armenian UNHCR office's refugee census showed that, while most refugees who naturalized have stayed in Armenia, the vast majority of refugees who opted not to naturalize have left the country. The Armenian government is providing housing vouchers to a number of the remaining naturalized former refugees, and UNHCR has committed to building individual cottages to others. Nicolaus told us the majority of the people his agency served weren't technically refugees anymore, and thus weren't legally under UNHCR's mandate. High Commissioner Antonio Guterres will pass through Armenia August 20-21 at the end of his tour of the Caucasus, which Nicolaus told us was initiated at Baku's request. The Ambassador plans to meet with Guterres to discuss the future of UNHCR's activities in Armenia. End Summary. -------------- REFUGEE CENSUS FINDS FEW REFUGEES -------------- ¶2. (C) Nicolaus's office began a census of refugees last October. So far, the census has been completed in two of Armenia's 11 marzes, or administrative regions: Syunik and Vayots Dzor. Census takers went door-to-door to every house in each marz whose inhabitants were registered as refugees, Nicolaus said. In Syunik, they visited the homes of just under 14,000 refugees, and found only 262. In Vayots Dzor, which had about 3,000 registered refugees on the rolls, census takers found only 11 refugees. The story was different for naturalized former refugees. About 3,100 of the 3,900 naturalized former refugees registered in Syunik were still living there, Nicolaus said. ¶3. (C) Aside from the obvious economic reasons for fleeing (refugees are still among the poorest residents of Armenia), refugees, most of whom go to Russia, have cultural reasons for leaving Armenia. Nicolaus said that, because the ethnically Armenian refugees had lived most of their lives in Azerbaijan, their language and cultural associations tended more toward Russia than Armenia. Further complicating their already complicated lives, most of the Armenians who fled Azerbaijan had lived in urban areas, primarily in Baku, and were then settled in remote rural areas and expected to learn how to farm. ¶4. (C) Nicolaus said he expected the completed census would show between 5,000 and 20,000 refugees and between 20,000 and 50,000 naturalized former refugees living in Armenia. (Note: He said UNHCR didn't anticipate completing the census on its own, and that UNDP had expressed interest in taking up the project. End Note.) The high end of that estimate represents less than 20 percent of the refugees who fled Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict -- 360,000, according to UNHCR. ¶5. (C) According to Gagik Yeganyan, the director of the GOAM's Department for Migration and Refugees, the Armenian government was providing housing vouchers to refugees in 10 marzes. Yeganyan told us the government hoped to implement the program in the 11th marz, Yerevan, next year. Only refugees currently living in communal housing are eligible for the vouchers. Nicolaus told us the GOAM provided the vouchers on the condition that UNHCR agreed to assist those who did not live in communal housing, and thus were left out of the government program. Nicolaus said UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee Council planned to build individual cottages in all regions of the country except Yerevan. (Note: PRM provided $100,000 of the $540,000 budget. End Note.) He anticipated the two organizations together would build about 250 cottages, which he estimated would take care of the need for shelter. He characterized UNHCR's activity as its "exit strategy from the shelter sector." -------------- WHAT'S NEXT FOR UNHCR IN ARMENIA? -------------- ¶6. (C) Nicolaus said about 20,000 naturalized former refugees, mostly elderly people without families, depend on YEREVAN 00000970 002 OF 002 UNHCR for food and for medical and social welfare assistance. He said that although the refugee need was not dire in Armenia, UNHCR could not pull out and leave Armenia holding the bag. He said UNHCR and the international community in general lobbied the government to make acquiring citizenship easy for refugees, and that if UNHCR pulled its operation, saying that there weren't any real refugees left in Armenia, other countries in which UNHCR has a presence might take notice and refuse to naturalize their refugees. -------------- HIGH COMMISSIONER COMING TO THE CAUCASUS -------------- ¶7. (C) Nicolaus told us that High Commissioner Guterres' visit to the region was prompted by an invitation from Azerbaijan. (Note: Armenia will be Guterres' last (and shortest) stop on a tour of all three Caucasus countries.) He said UNHCR was the latest in a line of UN agencies Azerbaijan was courting in an attempt to involve the UN in the N-K negotiations. "They think, 'The more we involve the UN in general, the more we can involve its political side,'" Nicolaus said. He noted that the GOAJ is trying to persuade UNAIDS to move its regional office out of Armenia and into Azerbaijan. Nicolaus also said the Azeris were inflating their statistics regarding internally displaced persons, and that while at the end of the N-K war they reported 500,000 to 600,000, now they are reporting one million. "Even if they reproduce at a very rapid pace, it's hard to explain," he said. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶8. (C) UNHCR continues to provide valuable assistance, though Nicolaus acknowledged to us that the community he served (naturalized former refugees) wasn't technically under the agency's mandate. After the shelter project is finished, all that remains for UNHCR is to continue its assistance to the 20,000 or so naturalized former refugees who depend on the agency. This assistance doesn't necessarily require the presence of a UNHCR office in Yerevan, and conceivably could be done remotely. We plan to discuss these issues with High Commissioner when he visits in August, and would welcome the presence of Refugee Coordinator Tim Richardson if he is available. EVANS