Europe had not seen such waves of refugees since the Second World War. “The number of refugees from Ukraine has now reached 4 million, 5 weeks after the start of the Russian attack”, tweeted Filippo Grandi, the head of the UNHCR who has just arrived in Ukraine.
“In Lviv I will speak with the authorities, the UN and other partners to see how to increase our support for the people affected and displaced by this senseless war”, added Filippo Grandi in this tweet.
A total of 4,019,287 Ukrainians, mostly women and children, have left the country of around 43 million people to flee the war unleashed by Russia, according to the updated figure from the dedicated UNHCR website. The number of refugees now exceeds the initial projection made by the UNHCR at the start of the war.
Almost 6.5 million internally displaced
Poland alone hosts more than 2.3 million of these people. In addition to an already strong Ukrainian community of 1.5 million people settled in the country, Poland is also attractive for a large number of refugees because it has shown itself to be generous in its reception and above all it is quite close to Ukraine to be able to return quickly to the country if the conditions allow it.
According to the UN, in total, more than ten million people, more than a quarter of the population, have had to leave their homes either by crossing the border to find refuge in neighboring countries, or by finding refuge elsewhere in Ukraine. . The UN estimates the number of internally displaced persons at nearly 6.5 million.