local authorities; this prevents an assessment of their various needs, including education. To facilitate IDP children’s enrolment in schools, the Ministry of Education allowed school administrations to enrol IDP children only based on the written request of their parents. Also the Ministry is cooperating with the Ministry of Health to simplify the procedure for children to obtain medical clearance to be able to register in schools. In large towns, people have to wait for a year, on average, to place their children in a kindergarten. To tackle this problem, on 8 August, the President of Ukraine signed a law allowing for the transfer of state property to local authorities in order to create new kindergartens. VII. SITUATION OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS (IDPs) As of 14 August, UNHCR reported that 155,800 IDPs had been identified by the Government of Ukraine. Of these, 139,621 were from the Donbas region, and 16,179 were from Crimea. The actual scale of internal displacement is higher, as many IDPs have not identified themselves at this stage, namely those staying with friends and relatives or hosted by civil society groups. Mostly those IDPs have registered who require social welfare assistance, despite the fact that the procedures for registration are not clear. Despite this, IDPs from the Donbas area continue to report hoping that their displacement will be short-lived and that they will be able to return home at the end of the summer. For this reason, many remain near to their homes, staying in rural areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions or in the nearby regions of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhya. Due to insecurity, humanitarian actors have not been able to assess the situation of persons displaced in the Luhansk region. Among the IDP population registered by the Government, 53% are adults. 65% of all IDPs are women, 35% are children, and 12% are older persons and persons with disabilities. Older persons and persons with disabilities are having difficulty obtaining (or paying for) healthcare, including medication. They cannot move as easily to new locations. A large number of displaced children need to be enrolled in schools, a process that is only just beginning. With many men having remained behind, IDP women face the often overwhelming challenge of caring for elderly and disabled relatives, supporting children who are deeply affected by the violence they have witnessed. The movements of people over the last month have responded to the developments of the continuing fighting. After the Government re-established control of various towns in the northern Donetsk region in early July, many IDPs returned. For example, some 20,000 IDPs returned to Slovyansk from other areas of the Donetsk region. Local authorities in Slovyansk estimate that while some 40% of the population was displaced at the peak of the hostilities, up to 90% had returned home by 17 August. However, the intensified fighting in the urban areas of Donetsk and Luhansk cities and neighbouring towns has led to larger waves of displacement, with the number of displaced rising by more than 50,000 persons in the three weeks from 15 July – 8 August. According to local authorities and IDP accounts, between a third to one half of the population have left Donetsk and Luhansk cities, which suggests that over 450,000 people would have been displaced from these cities alone. However, leaving these cities has become more dangerous with IDPs reporting that armed groups block the departure of men, and that they must travel on long winding journeys riddled with dozens of checkpoints. Regional and local authorities are providing some emergency shelter for IDPs in collective centres, but large cities like Kharkiv, Kyiv and Lviv – where employment opportunities are generally better – report that they do not have any more free spaces to accommodate IDPs. In 221 | P a g e