The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has released figures claiming that over five million Ukrainians have fled their country since the start of the Russian invasion in February.
According to the UNHCR, a total of 5,034,439 Ukrainians have fled their country since the start of the Russian invasion, while the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) claims that around 7.1 million people have been forced to leave their homes in Ukraine due to the conflict.
Kelly Clements, Deputy High Commissioner of the UNHCr, commented on the new figures this week saying, “After eight weeks of conflict, we are at five million, and it’s not over,” the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants reports.
Alongside the five million Ukrainians, a total of 218,000 foreign nationals have also fled the country, many from various African countries such as Morocco and Nigeria.
Some raised eyebrows over the number of Africans claiming to be refugees from Ukraine, including French European Parliament member Nicholas Bay, who stated in March that some African migrants already in Ukraine were exploiting the Ukrainian crisis to enter the EU.
Nearly a Million Ukrainian Refugees Have Already Returned to Their Country https://t.co/oiJkKen8kK
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 16, 2022
“[T]oday a third of the refugees who pass through Ukraine who do not come from Ukraine, but… come from sub-Saharan Africa in particular… [they] use this new migratory route to come to Europe,” Bay told French media.
Many of the foreign nationals, who were either students or workers, have returned to their own countries according to InfoMigrants, while the vast majority of Ukrainian refugees have been welcomed in neighbouring countries like Poland, which has taken in six out of every ten Ukrainians fleeing the conflict.
The UNHCR also states that nearly 600,000 Ukrainians have fled the conflict to Russia and Belarus.
While refugees continue to enter European Union countries from Ukraine, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Border Security claimed last week that around 870,000 Ukrainians have already returned to their home country and estimated that between 25,000 and 30,000 return each day.
"[T]oday a third of the refugees who pass through Ukraine who do not come from Ukraine, but… come from sub-Saharan Africa in particular… who use this new migratory route to come to Europe," the French MEP alleged https://t.co/1POeNpm87Z
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 13, 2022
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