Chernobyl forum to summarize 20-year long track record of mitigating accident consequences

The international conference “Chernobyl. 20 years after. Strategy of recovery and sustainable development of the affected regions” intends to summarize the 20-year track record of mitigating the accident consequences and to draw up long-term recommendations on rehabilitation and socio-economic development of the affected regions. The conference will take place April 19-21 in Minsk and Gomel and will be devoted to the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Attending the conference on its first and third days in Minsk will be about 1,5 thousand people, on its second day in Gomel – about 1,7 thousand, 750 of them – representatives of various international organizations and foreign countries, BelTA has been told in the press service of the Chernobyl committee under the Council of Ministers of Belarus. The forum is expected to be attended by UN Under-Secretary-General, Associate Administrator of the UN Development Program Ad Melkert, OSCE secretary general Mark Perren de Brishambo, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Markku Niskala. The Belarus-Russia Union State will be represented by state secretary of the Union State Pavel Borodin. Prime minister of Belarus Sidorskiy is scheduled to take part in an opening ceremony of the conference in the morning of April 19 in the Palace of the Republic in Minsk. The solemn opening ceremony will be broadcast by the First National TV Channel. On the same day the Palace of the Republic will play host to a photo exhibition “Chernobyl. 20 years after”. Gomel will host the second day of the conference which will feature five scientific sections in various areas of the Chernobyl rehabilitation. Representatives of Belarusian and foreign non-governmental organizations will gather for a roundtable “Humanitarian cooperation: experience, problems, prospects” and will attend an exhibition of projects that are implemented in Belarus to cushion the Chernobyl impact. Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsk Filaret, Patriarch of Exarch of All Belarus will address the participants of the conference. The organizers of the event have drawn up five routes to the Bragin, Vetka, Mozyr, Narovlya, Khoiniki and Cherchersk regions and also to the Polessye radiation-ecology reserve for those who would like to visit the Chernobyl-stricken regions. On April 20 Minsk will host the international festival of ecological films “EKAFILM” and also the republican artistic festival of children from the affected regions “With memory in the heart and hope for the future”. The third day of the forum will take place in Minsk again. The plenary sittings in the Palace of the Republic will sum up the results of the conference and pass final documents. The participants of the conference will also see the film “Chernobyl cross” which was shot especially for the sad anniversary by the national filmstudio Belarusfilm on the order of the Chernobyl committee and the culture ministry of the republic, informs the press services of the Chernobyl committee.