UN: The number of Ukrainian refugees is approaching 1.5 million

Prague (agencies)

Yesterday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stressed that the situation in Ukraine remains “dangerous”, explaining that the number of refugees fleeing the Russian attack will rise from 1.37 million today to 1.5 million by Monday.
“This is the fastest refugee crisis we have seen in Europe since the end of World War II,” Filippo Grandi said.
Most refugees now go to friends, family or other acquaintances already living in Europe, but he warned that further displacement waves could be more complex.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on its website yesterday that the number of refugees leaving Ukraine had reached 1.368 million at 12:15 GMT, about 160,000 more than in the previous census released yesterday.
Authorities and the United Nations expect refugee arrivals to increase as fighting continues around the capital, Kiev, as the Russian military continues to advance in Ukraine.
“1.3 million people have fled Ukraine in search of safety, and millions more may be forced to flee if the conflict does not end immediately,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a tweet yesterday. The United Nations expects four million people to flee the country to escape Russian aggression.
Prior to the conflict, more than 37 million people lived in the Ukrainian territory under Kiev’s control, outside the Crimean peninsula, which annexed Moscow in 2014, and areas under separatist control.
Poland has been providing the largest number of Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the attack, and their number has reached 756,000, up from 106,400 more than on Friday, 55.3 percent of the total, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
A total of 787,300 people have fled Ukraine to Poland, according to figures released yesterday, according to Polish border guards.
Before the crisis, Poland received about 1.5 million Ukrainians, most of whom came to work in EU member states. Hungary gained 157,000 people, 11.5 percent of the total, an increase of about 12,300 over the previous day.