New York: Thousands of people in war-torn Ukraine are forced to leave the country amid a cold winter. Ukrainian citizens are fleeing neighboring countries, pulling wheeled suitcases carrying their children, escaping from bombs and missiles falling from the sky. Those who are less fortunate are leaving Ukraine in overcrowded trains and trucks, but most of them do not know exactly where they should go. At the border posts of neighboring countries Poland, Romania, Moldova, bordering Ukraine, there are 10-mile long queues. People arrive at these border posts after traveling long distances and are prepared to wait up to 60 hours to enter other countries as refugees.
According to the United Nations, one million Ukrainians have left the country
The United Nations (UN) says that nearly one million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. This is the fastest refugee migration in this century. The United Nations has warned that exodus from Ukraine could be the biggest refugee crisis of this century.
But Ukraine’s refugee crisis cannot be seen in isolation. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the total number of displaced people in the world before the Russo-Ukraine war was 82.4 million. This number of refugees is roughly equal to the population of Germany. There were never so many refugees in the world after World War II.
UN funds are running out, which means millions of refugees who are already there are missing out on humanitarian aid. In war-torn Yemen alone, about 8 million people are living as refugees. The United Nations has warned that now all may be deprived of aid.
Ukraine’s refugee crisis intensifies from Syria refugee crisis
The UNHCR’s list of refugees has been dominated by those who fled war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Syria, where Russia launched a bloody intervention nearly six years ago to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The US also intervened in the Syrian civil war, but with the support of forces opposed to Bashar al-Assad.
Both Russia and America fought the terrorist organization ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in Syria. Many other players have also been involved in the complex web of the Syrian war. This devastation of the war in the Central Asian country started a wave of people seeking refuge in the West. It took 3 months for the number of people fleeing Syria to cross 1 million. This was also because when Syrian refugees started going through Turkey to European countries, they also had to face opposition.
According to the EU, 4 million people could leave Ukraine
On the other hand, Ukrainian refugees “white, educated and prosperous” are arriving in large numbers in neighboring countries such as Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, Belarus, and Russia. More than half of those leaving Ukraine have entered Poland. Ukrainians are going through these countries to other European countries. UN officials have warned that the number of refugees from Ukraine will increase rapidly.
So far, those who have left Ukraine and have become refugees in other countries make up only two percent of Ukraine’s 44 million population. No one knows how long the war in Ukraine will last. A large number of people are trapped in homes, bomb shelters, metro stations, and commercial establishments. The European Union (EU) estimates that 4 million Ukrainians may leave the country. The United States Ambassador to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has said that this number could be 5 million.
In Ukraine, 1.6 million people have been displaced in their own country
In addition, the United Nations estimates that at least 160,000 people in Ukraine have been displaced by the war in their own country. UN officials have said that such people would eventually like to leave their country. The European Union believes that this figure could reach 7 million, and 18 million Ukrainians will be affected by the war in some way or another.
The European Union (a political and economic union of 27 member states in Europe) has relaxed rules to welcome Ukrainian refugees with “open arms”. The United Kingdom and the United States are making similar efforts. The Prime Minister of Japan has also said that his country will accept refugees from Ukraine. However, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management has said it is an emergency of historic proportions.
1 percent of all humanity on Earth is now displaced
UNHCR said the war was making the environment unsafe for aid workers to travel around Ukraine and help internally displaced people. According to the UNHCR, 1 percent of all humanity is now displaced. This number has doubled in just a decade. Of those, 42 percent are refugees under the age of 18, and nearly one million children were born as refugees between 2018 and 2020. Many of them may remain refugees for years. Another 4.80 million people have been displaced in their own countries.
The war between Russia and Ukraine can’t say b will end
A second round of talks to end the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine was proposed on March 3. But there was little hope of reaching any conclusion of these peace talks. The war between Ukraine and Russia is still going on, along with the exodus. Russia has said that 500 of its soldiers have been killed and 1,600 have been injured in the war. Ukraine has only said that more than 2,000 of its civilians have been killed. There has been no independent verification of these claims so far.
