Japan's justice minister said Tuesday the government has accepted into the country eight people displaced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, following an earlier announcement by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to do so as Tokyo ramps up its humanitarian support.
"We will work together with the relevant ministries and agencies so that we can proactively and swiftly accept" evacuees from Ukraine, Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa said at a parliament session.
The eight people are Ukrainian nationals who have relatives or acquaintances in Japan and were granted short-term residency for 90 days, according to the Immigration Services Agency of Japan.
All the evacuees had arrived in Japan by Tuesday after fleeing from Ukraine to neighboring countries such as Poland, it said.
The agency said it is taking a flexible approach to the evacuees in principle and is considering allowing them to extend their visa and permit them to work by granting a "designated activities" status of residence.
Those who apply for refugee status will have their claims considered on the merits, the agency said.
But Japan accepts very few refugees annually, certifying only around 1 percent of applications it receives. In 2020, it certified just 47 people as refugees out of the 3,936 applications lodged.
Kishida said last Wednesday the government will also be open to accepting Ukrainian evacuees who do not have relatives or acquaintances in Japan, given the severe humanitarian situation.
"Japan will allow in people who have fled Ukraine to third countries as we wish to show our solidarity with the people of Ukraine when the world is at a critical juncture," Kishida told reporters in announcing the policy.
While easing its border controls introduced amid the coronavirus pandemic, Japan still maintains a cap on the number of people arriving from overseas, including Japanese nationals, at 5,000 a day. Evacuees from Ukraine do not count toward the daily limit, according to Kishida.
On Tuesday, Yokohama, the second most populous Japanese city near Tokyo, said it is ready to accept people fleeing from the East European country, with 79 rooms at public housing already secured.
While some 122 Ukrainians live in the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture, Yokohama, also a sister city of Odessa, a port city in southern Ukraine, said it will also raise relief donations for the war-torn country.
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