GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine and another two million have been driven from their homes inside the country since the Russian invasion began on February 24, the government said on Friday. International Organization for Migration (IOM), an agency of the United Nations.
The UN established its humanitarian aid program by estimating the number of Ukrainian refugees called upon to leave their country at four million.
A UN refugee official, however, has warned that the body may revise this estimate upwards, as around 200,000 people have left Ukraine for neighboring countries in the past 24 hours.
“It is quite possible that the figure of 4 million projected will be revised upwards. It would not be a surprise”, said by videoconference Matthew Saltmarsh, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ).
Aid organizations are scrambling to provide heating for thousands of displaced people waiting in freezing temperatures at border crossings, he added, as trucks transport thousands of electric blankets and mattresses to the Ukraine.
Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped under intense bombardment of Ukrainian towns and villages and lack essential supplies, with Moscow and Kyiv accusing each other of breaking ceasefires.
A report from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday that psychological support services were being provided online from basements in Ukraine due to the security situation.
(Report Emma Farge, with the contribution of Michael Shields, French version Diana Mandiá, edited by Sophie Louet)
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