Ukraine is Europe’s ‘fastest growing refugee’ crisis since WWII

The number of people fleeing Russia’s attacks on Ukraine has topped 1.5 million, making it Europe’s fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II, the United Nations said on Sunday.

“More than 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine have crossed into neighbouring countries in 10 days,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees tweeted.

The UN described the outflow as “the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II”, having reported on Saturday that nearly 1.37 million refugees had fled.

UN officials said they expected the wave to intensify further as the Russian army pressed its offensive, particularly toward the capital Kyiv.

Since Russia launched a military operation on February 24, a total of 922,400 people have fled Ukraine to Poland, Polish border guards said Sunday.

The World Health Organization said meanwhile that signs of attacks on health centres in Ukraine were increasing, which it said amounts to a violation of medical neutrality and international humanitarian law.