Sixty-seven refugees, residents of Kasakh village, Kotayk province, will be provided with new apartments due to a program funded by the Government of Japan. The reconstruction of a multi-flat social house in the place of a former factory’s production annex will be finished within a month.

According to the data of the State Migration Service of the Ministry of Territorial Administration, starting 1988 about 360,000 refugees fled Azerbaijan into Armenia. Currently there are about 1,300 particularly needy families registered, 950 of them reside in Yerevan; $45 million is needed to settle their problems. Now only 20 families will have a positive solution.

“This program is very important to us, because since 1988, these people have lived in a prison building, in cells designed for prisoners. There are even people who live in cellars, under severe conditions,” Arayik Mkrtchyan, head of Kasakh village, told ArmeniaNow.

About 300 refugees live in Kasakh (with 6,000-people population)

Ara Harutyunyan, Head of the Refugees Department in the State Migration Service of the Ministry of Territorial Administration, told ArmeniaNow that the refugees (who will get new apartments) are selected based on the list of refugees registered as socially vulnerable in August, 2003.

According to the press release of the Ministry of Territorial Administration, business opportunities for refugees will also be created (sewing workshop, trade enterprise, etc.)

Construction of another social house in Fuchiki St. #19, Yerevan (decree 118 of the RA Government) is also in the process.