Thousands still fleeing Ukraine – UN
A total of 5,133,747 Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia’s attacks on February 24, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday, adding that the figure marked an increase of 48,387 from Thursday’s data.
It was gathered that about 1,098,000 Ukrainians had, so far, left the country in April, compared with 3.4 million for the whole of March.
Women and children accounted for 90 per cent of those who fled abroad, with men aged 18 to 60 eligible for military call-up unable to leave.
The UN’s International Organisation for Migration said that an additional 218,000 citizens of third countries, largely students and migrant workers, had also escaped to neighbouring countries.
Beyond the refugees, the IOM estimated that 7.7 million people were displaced within Ukraine.
Before the invasion, Ukraine had a population of 37 million in the regions under government control, excluding Russia-annexed Crimea and the pro-Russian separatist-controlled regions in the east.
Read Also: NAF Graduates 145 Advanced Special Operations Forces In Bauchi
Meanwhile, 1.1 million Ukrainians had returned to their country since the war began.
Here is a breakdown of how many Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighbouring countries, according to UNHCR:
Nearly six out of 10 Ukrainian refugees of 2,867,241 so far had crossed into Poland.
Many of them travelled on to other states in Europe’s Schengen open-borders zone.
Meanwhile, more than 800,000 people have crossed from Poland into Ukraine, Polish border guards said.
Before the war, Poland was home to around 1.5 million Ukrainians, chiefly migrant workers.
The vast majority were thought to have gone on to other countries.
Another 578,255 refugees had, however, sought shelter in Russia.
In addition, 105,000 people crossed into Russia from the separatist-held pro-Russian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine between February 18 and 23.
A total of 480,974 Ukrainians also entered Hungary.
The Moldovan border which is the closest to the major port city of Odessa, a total of 430,170 Ukrainians had, by Wednesday, crossed into it despite being one of the poorest in Europe.
A total of 349,286 people had also crossed Ukraine’s shortest border into Slovakia while another 23,900 refugees had made it North to Russia’s close ally, Belarus.
AFP
