Russia’s war against Ukraine, which began on February 24, has forced 5 million 34,44,000 people as of mid-day April 19 to leave the country in search of safety, protection and assistance, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has released this data.
It also for the first time made public data on the flow into Ukraine, citing the State Border Guard Service, according to which from February 28 to April 18, it was 948,500 people, while spokesman Andriy Demchenko on Wednesday estimated it since February 24 at 1.1 million.
Department specifies that the Ukrainian-Polish border accounted for 56.1% of all exits: 2 million 825,460. According to the Polish Border Agency’s data made public on Wednesday morning, 2.9 million people have entered the country from Ukraine since the war began, and 756,000 have passed in the opposite direction.
Romania and Moldova received 821,052, some 471,008 arrived in Hungary, and 342,081 in Slovakia.
The number of people, crossing the border between Russia and Belarus, has been growing at an accelerated rate compared to the EU and the Republic of Moldova over the past month: April 19, it reached 549,081 and 23,076, respectively.
For comparison: if since March 15, the number of those who entered Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia increased by 58-78%, then to Russia – 3.8 times, to Belarus – 19 times. According to Ukrainian authorities, a significant part of Ukrainian citizens were displaced to the territory of Russia and Belarus from the war zone or from the occupied territories against their will due to the absence of humanitarian corridors to Ukraine.
In general, the flow of people leaving the country has slowed down considerably compared to the beginning of the war and is gradually stabilizing: if in the first 19 days of the war 3 million people left Ukraine, it took first six days to increase by another half a million, then nine, and for the next two increases of half a million, eleven days each.
During the European Easter holidays, for the first time since the beginning of the war, the State Border Guard Service recorded a greater flow of people entering Ukraine at its western border on some days than exiting. In total, over the past seven days, about 250,000 people left the country and 225,000 entered.
UNHCR indicates that as of mid-2021, there were 53,047 Ukrainian refugees around the world seeking the appropriate status, including 36,049 in Europe.
The Ukrainian diaspora in the world by mid-2020 was estimated by UNHCR at 6.1 million, including 5 million in Europe.
The organization specifies that the right to free movement within the Schengen area means that there are very few border controls in the European Union, so data on arrivals in Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia reflect only border crossings in these countries, but the UN estimates that large numbers of people have moved to other countries.
In addition, UNHCR does not count people from border countries leaving Ukraine and returning home.
