The flow of refugees from d’Ukraine slowed down but continued. Since the beginning of the invasion ordered by the Russian president Vladimir Poutinejust over 4.1 million Ukrainians have fled their country.
These refugees were “forced to flee to stay alive. Forced to abandon their homes. Forced to be separated from their families. This tragedy must end,” said the High Commissioner for Refugees. Since March 22, the flow of refugees has slowed down significantly, to around 40,000 daily passages.
6.5 million internally displaced
In total, more than ten million people, more than a quarter of the population, had to leave their homes either by crossing the border to find refuge in neighboring countries, or by finding refuge elsewhere in Ukraine. L’ON estimates the number of internally displaced persons at almost 6.5 million.
The High Commissioner for Refugees listed exactly 4,102,876 Ukrainian refugees on its dedicated website, Thursday around 12 p.m. (French time). These are 43.771 more than in the previous score on Thursday. Europe has not seen such floods of refugees since the Second World War. Some 90% of those who fled Ukraine are women and children.
Many children on the run
According to Unicef, around two million children are among those who fled. The organization also estimates that more than half of the country’s 7.5 million children are either internally displaced or refugees.
About 204,000 non-Ukrainians have also fled the country and sometimes encounter difficulties in returning to their country of origin. Before this conflict, Ukraine was populated by more than 37 million people in the territories controlled by Kiev – which therefore do not include the Crimea (South) annexed in 2014 by Russia, nor the eastern areas under the control of pro-Russian separatists since the same year.
Warsaw on the front line
The Poland alone hosts well over half of all refugees who have left Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion. Six out of 10 Ukrainian refugees entered Poland. Since February 24, 2,384,814 of them have entered Poland, according to the UNHCR count as of March 31.
And according to Unicef, about half (1.1 million) are children. Second comes the Romania where 623,627 people visited as of March 31. Many refugees, however, decide to move on once they are safe.