Russia-Ukraine war creating a child refugee 'almost every second'
Kiev (Ukraine), March 16: UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday that almost one child is becoming a war refugee every second in Ukraine, as the total number of people who have fled the war-torn country since the Russian invasion began surpassed three million.
"We have now reached the three million mark in terms of movements of people out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries. And among these people there are some 157,000 third-country nationals," said the spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Paul Dillon.
Around 1.5 million children have now joined the exodus from Ukraine, at a rate of slightly under one per second, since the Russian invasion started on 24 February.
"Every day, over the past 20 days, in Ukraine more than 70,000 children have become refugees. That's every minute, 55 children fleeing the country," informed the spokesperson for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), James Elder.
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Citing that nine in 10 of those fleeing unrelenting violence in Ukraine are women and children, the UNICEF spokesperson cautioned that youngsters are prey to traffickers as they arrive in unfamiliar new surroundings.
Russia-Ukraine war creating a child refugee 'almost every second'
"To give a sense of the border that I used to visit - the main border, Medyka, Poland to Ukraine - it is scores of people standing around buses and minivans calling out names of capital cities - or at least it was a week ago - people getting onto those," he added.
"The vast, vast majority, of course, are people with wonderful intentions and great generosity, but there is no doubt given what we understand of trafficking in Europe, that that remains a very, very grave issue."
The news comes as the United Nations Secretary-General warned on Monday that Russia's military offensive against civilians was "reaching terrifying proportions."
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-PTC News
