GENEVA, March 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Over 3 million Ukrainian refugees have arrived in neighboring countries, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.
According to the agency, the number of people who fled Ukraine between Feb 24 and March 15 has reached 3,000,381. A total of 1,830,711 people fled to Poland, 459,485 – to Romania, 337,315 – to Moldova, 267,570 – to
Hungary.
Some people have travelled from Moldova into Romania and so are included in both countries’ totals, the UN says.
Trains heading towards Ukraine’s border have been packed, and there have been long queues of traffic on roads leading out of the country.
UN spokeswoman Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams said it was mostly women and children making the crossing into Poland, with some facing waits of 24 hours. In some cases children were travelling with distant relatives or family members who returned to Ukraine after dropping them off, she said.
Refugees are told they do not need documents, but should preferably have their internal or foreign passports, birth certificates of children travelling with them and medical documentation.
To get refugee status, they need to be Ukrainian citizens or people legally living in Ukraine, such as foreign students.
There have been reports of people from African countries being prevented from leaving Ukraine.
In countries bordering Ukraine, refugees can stay in reception centres if they do not have friends or relatives to stay with. They are given food and medical care, and information about onward travel.
The EU has granted Ukrainians who flee the war a blanket right to stay and work throughout the 27 nations for up to three years.
They also receive social welfare and access to housing, medical treatment and schooling for children.
The government of Poland, which has received the highest number of refugees, has said it will need more money than the EU is currently offering in order to host the number of people arriving there.
Moldova, which has by far the largest concentration of refugees per capita, has also appealed for international help in dealing with the numbers arriving.
There are an estimated 1.85 million internally displaced people inside Ukraine, the UN says.
This includes 200,000 in the western city of Lviv – the mayor there has said it has reached the limit of its capacity to help refugees.
The UN’s High Commission for Refugees estimates that 12 million people inside Ukraine will need assistance.
It says people in southern Ukraine desperately need assistance like bedding, medication and heating – and that food, water and shelter are desperately needed in the east.
The UN says it is offering humanitarian assistance inside Ukraine “wherever necessary and possible”. This includes: delivering supplies from west to east, including food and tarpaulins for homes damaged by shelling; providing folding beds to people in bomb shelters; and setting up reception and transit points for internally-displaced people
The EU believes the total number of refugees could climb to seven million. — NNN-AGENCIES
