April 12, 2022 – Ukrainian refugees are welcome in Vukovar, the city that has felt their pain. It’s now time to rely on past experience to serve as a guide in supporting those in need. The city's institutions, organisations, and residents are coming together to provide a warm welcome and offer a helping hand to those living in Vukovar.

As Jutarnji writes, the citizens of Vukovar and members of refugee families from Ukraine all gathered in Vukovar on Monday, 11^th of April to take part in the public forum “Living in Vukovar”, organised by Europe House Vukovar and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

“Since the people of Vukovar have experience of war and living in other areas, we know that we all needed friendly words and little signs of appreciation in the beginning. We thus wanted to organise a meetup for people in the local community with the aim of exchanging information, making new contacts and so that refugees from Ukraine can integrate into the local community regardless of how long they will stay”, said the executive director of Europe House Vukovar, Dijana Antunović Lazić.

According to the project coordinator at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Branka Smoljan, it is extremely important to work on integration to make sure that refugees have the best chance of fitting into a new environment.

“This is the first such project, to be followed by similar projects in the north of Croatia, in Koprivnica, Čakovec, and Varaždin, where the largest number of Ukrainian refugees arrive,” Smoljan said.

According to the secretary of the Ukrainian community in Croatia, Marija Semenjuk Simeunović, about 200 Ukrainians have so far arrived in the Vukovar-Srijem County.

“We recently organized a workshop to which we invited many displaced persons, especially children, to connect with our members and to feel welcome in our city”, said Semenjuk Simeunović.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.