GENEVA, Switzerland — Some 677,000 refugees have fled
the
conflict in Ukraine for safety in neighboring countries, while around a
million people are estimated to be internally displaced, the UN said Tuesday.
اضافة اعلان
The UN Refugee Agency chief
Filippo Grandi said the numbers of people on the move was "extremely worrying", as
Russian troops pound cities in eastern Ukraine, on day six of Moscow's
invasion.
Grandi told a press conference in
Geneva that the latest figure he had was 677,000 people who had fled from Ukraine to
neighboring countries.
"We are looking at what could become
Europe's largest refugee crisis this century," he said.
Grandi said that around half had fled to
Poland, whilst roughly 90,000 had reached Hungary, 60,000 Moldova, 50,000
Slovakia and 40,000 Romania.
At an earlier press conference, Shabia
Mantoo, a spokeswoman for
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said the numbers were
"exponentially increasing".
She said that all neighboring countries had
so far kept their borders open for refugees fleeing Ukraine — including a
"sizeable number" who have crossed into
Russia.
"UNHCR urges governments to continue to
maintain access to territory for all those fleeing: Ukrainians, and
third-country nationals living in Ukraine, who are now forced to escape the
violence," she said.
Internally displaced
Meanwhile in Stockholm, Karolina Lindholm
Billing, the UNHCR representative to
Ukraine, estimated that a million people
had been internally displaced by the Russian invasion.
"We estimate that it has to be about
one million people who have fled internally or who are currently on a train, a
bus or in a car trying to get to a safety," she told a press conference in
Stockholm.
She cautioned that the agency still did not
have reliable figures.
Mantoo said that at the
Polish border, UNCHR
staff reported that people who managed to cross the frontier had been waiting
up to 60 hours in freezing temperatures.
"Refugees who have the means are
finding their own accommodation, whereas others are being hosted with local
communities who have opened their homes, or sheltered in reception
centers," she said.
There are queues of up to 20 hours to enter
Romania, said Mantoo, with volunteers providing interpretation services, while
it is taking 24 hours to cover the 60km between the Ukrainian port city of
Odessa and the border with Moldova.
New arrivals in Moldova are being
accommodated in temporary reception centers, while the UNHCR is distributing
relief items, including blankets and sleeping bags, with an airlift from Dubai
of more supplies due to arrive on Wednesday.
The
UN's International Organization
for Migration said an estimated 470,000 third-country nationals were
living in Ukraine, including a large number of overseas students and labor
migrants.
"While 6,000 of those have been
confirmed to have arrived in Moldova and Slovakia alone, many remain stranded
amidst the worsening security situation," spokeswoman Safa Msehli told
journalists in Geneva.
"We appeal to states to protect people
forced from their homes due to the fighting and to allow them to cross
Ukraine's borders to safety — without discrimination."
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