(Geneva) More than five million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, according to figures from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday.
Posted at 9:13 a.m.
The UNHCR counted exactly 4,796,245 refugees on Friday. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), around 215,000 non-Ukrainians have also fled the country.
This is the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
Friday’s figures up 59,774 from those released Thursday.
More than 2.7 million Ukrainian refugees — almost six in ten since the start of the war — have fled to Poland. More than 725,000 reached Romania.
According to UNHCR figures, nearly 645,000 Ukrainians fled in February, nearly 3.4 million in March and more than 760,000 since early April.
PHOTO EMILIO MORENATTI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Ukrainian couple say goodbye at the border crossing in Shehyni, Poland.
Women and children represent 90% of the refugees, men aged 18 to 60 being called up and therefore unable to leave.
Almost two-thirds of Ukrainian children have been forced to leave their homes, including those still in the country.
The approximately 215,000 third-country nationals who fled Ukraine — people who are citizens neither of Ukraine nor of the country they entered — are mostly students and migrant workers.
In addition to the refugees, the IOM estimates that there are 7.1 million internally displaced people in Ukraine.
Before the invasion, Ukraine had 37 million inhabitants in the territories controlled by Kyiv – which therefore does not include Crimea (south) annexed in 2014 by Russia or the eastern areas under the control of pro-Russian separatists. since the same year.