প্রকাশ: 03/03/2022
At least one million people have fled Ukraine in the week
since Russia’s invasion, the United Nations said, with one official warning
that “at this rate” the exodus could become “the biggest refugee crisis this
century”.
Thursday’s tally from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) amounts to more than 2 percent of Ukraine’s population, which the World
Bank counted at 44 million at the end of 2020, on the move across borders in
just seven days.
The agency cautioned that the outflows were far from finished:
It has predicted that as many as 4 million people could eventually leave
Ukraine, and even that projection could be revised upward.
Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, told
the Associated Press news agency in an email that “our data indicates we passed
the 1 million mark” as of midnight in central Europe, based on counts collected
by national authorities.
On Twitter, UN High Commissioner Filippo Grandi wrote, “In
just seven days we have witnessed the exodus of one million refugees from
Ukraine to neighboring countries.”
He added, “For many millions more, inside Ukraine, it’s time
for guns to fall silent, so that life-saving humanitarian assistance can be
provided.”
As the sound of artillery fire, exploding mortar shells, and
gunfire echoed across the country, Grandi’s comments testified to the
desperation of civilians in Ukraine, as well as the growing concern of a
humanitarian disaster by UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization and
the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The daily figures point to the dizzying speed of the
evacuation.
After more than 82,000 people left on the first day of the
Russian invasion on February 24, each day afterwards resulted in at least
117,000 new refugees, hitting a peak of nearly 200,000 on Tuesday alone, based
on the latest UNHCR count.
In comparison, Syria, whose civil war erupted in 2011 and remains
the country with the largest refugee outflows, had nearly 5.7 million people
fleeing, according to UNHCR’s figures. But even at the fasted rate of flight in
early 2013, it took at least three months for 1 million refugees to leave
Syria.
Two years later, in 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrian
and other refugees who had mostly been in Turkey fled to Europe, prompting
disarray in the European Union over its response and at times, skirmishes and
pushbacks at some national borders.
So far, UN officials and others have generally praised the
response from Ukraine’s neighbours that have opened homes, gymnasiums, and
other facilities to take in the new refugees.
UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo said Wednesday that “at
this rate” the outflows from Ukraine could make it the source of “the biggest
refugee crisis this century”.
According to UN data, more than half of those fleeing
Ukraine went to Poland and more than 116,000 to Hungary to the south. Moldova
has taken in more than 79,000 and 71,200 have gone to Slovakia.
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