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Lithuania to receive orphans from eastern Ukraine

Lithuania will receive children who lost their parents in eastern Ukraine after the Government of Lithuania decided on 3 October to allocate 330,000 litas (EUR 95,406) for the purpose.

"The funds will be used to teach children, care for them as well as will be spent on their accommodation, nourishment, utility and other services, including health insurance, the acquisition of school supplies, the organization of summer camps and covering other expenses," Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said after the Cabinet's sitting. The 15 schoolchildren – pre-conflict orphans or those who lost their parents during the ongoing conflict – would come to Lithuania from the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk later this month. In Lithuania, the Ukrainian children will attend classes until the end of the 2014-2015 academic year. The country's Ministry of Education and Science is taking care of that. The children will be accompanied by two teachers. The decision to receive the children was taken in response to the request by the Ukrainian government and the administration of the Dnipropetrovsk region, which is taking care of refugees from the conflict zones, addressed to the EU member states. Classes do not take place in the conflict zones as schools are ruined or not heated. Lithuania has already sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, is providing medical treatment for injured Ukrainian troops and has allocated EUR 50,000 to the NATO fund that will provide assistance to the Ukrainian army. Lithuania's public organizations are also constantly collecting humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.