TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
More than two million flee Ukraine in 12 days: UN
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a news conference during a visit to Stockholm that "the time is now to try to help at the border", rather than discussions on the division of refugees between countries.
Change Size
Board the train: The situation at Kyiv train station in Kyiv, Ukraine, as people try to evacuate on March 5, 2022. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warns that the war in Ukraine (AFP/Genya Savilov)
T
he number of people fleeing Ukraine since the Russian invasion began has probably now reached 2.1-2.2 million people, the head of the United Nation's refugee agency UNHCR said on Wednesday.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a news conference during a visit to Stockholm that "the time is now to try to help at the border", rather than discussions on the division of refugees between countries.
Grandi added that non-EU-member Moldova in particular was very vulnerable in the current situation.
The UNHCR chief also called it a "shocking milestone", AFP reported.
"Behind the monolithic statistics are two million stories of separation, anguish, and loss," he said.
Families have been "senselessly ripped apart", plunged into "despair and unimaginable suffering" by the "brutal war", he said.
Authorities and the UN expect the flow to intensify as the Russian army advances deeper into Ukraine, particularly as it approaches the capital, Kyiv.
Before Russia invaded, more than 37 million people lived in Ukrainian territory under the control of the central government.
Besides those who have left, an unknown number have been displaced from their homes within the country.
The International Organization for Migration said that 103,000 third-country nationals were among those who have fled.
"There are countless tens of thousands of others who remain in the country stranded," IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said, citing a mixture of overseas students and workers.
