3.7 million people flee Ukraine: UN

GENEVA: Some 3.7 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s invasion a month ago, the UN said Friday.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said 3,725,806 Ukrainians had fled the country — an increase of 50,854 from the previous day’s figure.

Around 90 percent of them are women and children, it added.

Of those who have left, 2.2 million have fled for neighbouring Poland while more than half a million have made it to Romania. Around 20,000 have gone to Russia.

Before the crisis sparked a month ago, EU member Poland was home to around 1.5 million Ukrainians.

In total, more than 10 million people — over a quarter of the population in regions under government control before the February 24 invasion — are now thought to have fled their homes, including nearly 6.5 million who are internally displaced.

Ukraine’s refugee crisis is Europe’s worst since World War II.

The UN children’s agency Unicef said Thursday that 4.3 million children — more than half of Ukraine’s estimated 7.5 million child population — had been forced to leave their homes.

It puts at some 1.5 million the number of those children who have become refugees, while another 2.5 million are displaced inside their war-ravaged country, it said.