UN: The number of Ukrainian refugees exceeds five million

 

The number of Ukrainian refugees who have fled the country since the beginning of the conflict has exceeded five million. Such data was provided by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The first place among the countries where Ukrainian citizens have gone was Poland, which has already received more than 2.8 million people.

– The number of refugees crossing the border is growing every day, said Shabia Mantu, a UNHCR spokeswoman. – Unimaginable numbers of people have had to leave their homes, abandon their possessions and sometimes their loved ones. Millions have had their lives shattered, torn apart by the war.

In Poland, special centers are set up to receive refugees, most of them women and children. The living conditions here are not the most comfortable, but many of those who came here in their homeland were left homeless.

 

– We wanted to leave a long time ago, because all the houses around us were destroyed, one of the women who ended up here shared. – We were sitting in basements, afraid to go out. Looters looted everything, people had nothing to eat, we didn’t even have water.

The main fighting is now concentrated in eastern Ukraine, and some residents are returning to cities in the west and north of the country. But many people’s homes have been destroyed, and it will take a lot of time and effort to rebuild them.

 

Source: euronews.com