1 million refugees flee Ukraine in a week: UN

The UN refugee agency said today that 1 million people have now fled Ukraine since Russia's invasion less than a week ago, an exodus without precedent in this century for its speed.

The tally from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees amounts to more than 2% 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 cautions that the outflows are 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.

In an email, UNHCR spokeswoman Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams wrote, "Our data indicates we passed the 1M 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."

Grandi appealed for the "guns to fall silent" in Ukraine so humanitarian aid can reach millions more still inside the country.

Grandi's comments testified to the desperation of Ukrainians as artillery fire, exploding mortar shells and gunfire echoed across the country, and the growing concerns across the UN system at agencies like the World Health Organization and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs—which launched an appeal for funds with UNHCR on Tuesday.

So far, UN officials and others have generally praised the response from Ukraine's neighbors, who have opened homes, gymnasiums and other facilities to take in the new refugees.

UNHCR spokeswoman 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 the latest figures on UNHCR's online data portal, which still showed 934,000 refugees early Thursday, more than half of the refugees from Ukraine had gone to neighboring Poland — over 505,000 — and more than 116,000 had gone to Hungary to the south. Moldova had taken in more than 79,000 and 71,200 had gone to Slovakia.

KF/