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.
Federal Minister of Digital Technologies and Transport of Germany Volker Wissing says that the flow of refugees from Ukraine has significantly decreased and stressed that the German state does not intend to impose any restrictions on the admission of Ukrainian refugees.
“The number of refugees traveling to Germany by train has dropped significantly from its peak at the beginning of the war, from around 8,200 to the current around 2,500 people a day. However, we maintain logistical and transport structures because we cannot predict the course of the war at any moment may face an increase in the number of refugees. We must expect further escalation and be prepared. Those in need in Ukraine should be able to find asylum in Germany,” Wissing said in an interview with the German Editorial Network (RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland, RND).
When asked if there is an upper limit for accepting refugees from Ukraine, the minister replied: “This question does not arise. Germany cannot and will not reject refugees from Ukraine.”
He also noted that Germany is working on accepting Ukrainian refugees who were previously settled in the EU countries neighboring Ukraine, and is also working to ensure that other EU countries are involved in this, recalling that a number of Polish cities have reached the limit of their capacity to accommodate Ukrainians.
“We quickly became convinced that people traveling from Ukraine could be transported from Poland to Germany. There are distribution centers in Hannover, Cottbus and Berlin…. If there is a threat of congestion in neighboring Ukrainian countries, we must again campaign for their distribution throughout the EU .I am in constant contact with my European colleagues,” Wissing said.
Asked about his attitude to the energy embargo against Russia, the minister noted that Germany “very quickly launched a comprehensive package of sanctions together with its European partner countries and the United States, but the impact on our society must also be taken into account when deciding on sanctions.” “Nothing would be more beneficial to Mr. Putin than if we took action that would lead to a quarrel and ultimately divide our society,” he stressed.
“Germany is very aware of its role and acts responsibly. We avoid acting alone and act in close coordination with our European partners,” Wissing concluded.
Nearly 43,800 refugees from Ukraine have been registered in Lithuania, 18,200 of them are minors, data from the Lithuanian Statistics Department released on Tuesday show.
Over the past 24 hours, 857 refugees have been registered in Lithuania, of which 334 are minors, including 87 children under six years of age. The weekly average daily rate of arrivals from Ukraine, according to the latest data, is 489 people.
Approximately a third of the Ukrainians who arrived were registered at the Vilnius registration center, about 6,000 – at the Kaunas center. Almost 4,900 refugees who arrived in Lithuania are children under the age of six, 13,400 are between the ages of 6 and 18. More than 1.9 thousand are people over the age of 65.
Most of the arrivals applied for a temporary residence permit for humanitarian reasons. Most of the arrivals are women and children.
Since February 24, 2.5 million citizens of Ukraine have crossed the Polish border, according to the Polish Border Guard Service.
“Yesterday, on April 5, 21,000 travelers were registered, which is 13% more than the day before (18,500). Today, 4,700 had been issued by 07:00 with an increase of 23%,” the message posted on Twitter says.
Since February 24, 485,000 people have left Poland for Ukraine.
The vast majority (79.2%) of refugees from Ukraine intend to return to their homeland after the end of the war, and only 10.9% do not plan to return, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Sociological Service of the Razumkov Center at checkpoints in the Transcarpathian region from March 15 to April 1.
During the survey, 101 respondents over 16 years old were interviewed, who were traveling from Ukraine on foot or by road. 89.1% are sure that Ukraine will win this war, only 1% are sure that it will lose, the rest found it difficult to answer.
83.2% of refugees are women. 63.4% travel with their children and only 12.9% on their own.
36.6% – leaving the country at the age of 30-39, 25.7% – 40-49 years old, 18.8% – 16-29 years old, 10.9% – over 60 years old and 7.9% at the age of 50 -59 years old.
The relative majority of refugees are from Kyiv and Kharkov regions (18.8% each), slightly less from Kiev (11.9%), Donetsk (7.9%), Zaporozhye (6.9%), Mykolaiv, Odessa, Kherson ( by 5%) regions. No one left Volyn, Lvov, Khmelnytsky, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Ternopil regions. 55.4% stated that they left the settlement where the hostilities took place, 12.9% – that the hostilities took place nearby, 9.9% – that there were no hostilities, but their locality was bombarded or shelled, 13.9 % – that this happened in a neighboring settlement, and only 7.9 noted that there were no hostilities and shooting either in their settlement or nearby.
26.7% reported that they received assistance from government agencies, 53.5% – from volunteers, 8.9% – from religious organizations, 6.9% – from enterprises (including at the place of work), 40, 6% – from relatives and friends, 44.6% – from unfamiliar fellow citizens, only 20.8% received no help at all. 63.4% of refugees said that the language of communication at home is Russian (only 30.7% – Ukrainian), but only 21.8% called Russian their native language (Ukrainian 65.3%, 4% named another language).
The Council today adopted legislative amendments making it possible for member states to redirect resources from cohesion policy funds and the Fund for European Aid for the Most Deprived (FEAD) to assist the refugees escaping the Russian military aggression against Ukraine. The total amount of assistance will be EUR 17 billion.
“The swift amendment of the legislation on EU funds is a clear statement of the EU’s continued solidarity with the refugees from Ukraine and with the member states hosting them, in particular those sharing borders with Ukraine, ” a communique of the European Council, distributed on Monday, reads.
“This is an important step in ensuring member states have sufficient resources to meet the growing needs for housing, education and healthcare, ” the press release reads.
