The Unfolding Refugee Crisis- 25 February 2022 (21:43 GMT)
More than 100,000 Ukrainians have fled the crisis in the past 48 hours, according to the UN Refugee Agency, with that number predicted to increase to potentially 5 million total leaving Ukraine as the Russian invasion continues. With initial movements from the East towards the capital Kyiv, as forces have pushed into the capital the citizens of Kyiv have been seen queueing in their thousands for trains and on highways leading West, towards the city of Lviv and the Ukrainian border with Poland, Romania, Hungary, Moldova and Slovakia. More than 10,000 have entered Romania, and more than 29,000 Ukrainian civilians have made it to Poland in the last 48 hours alone, with Poland promising to absorb up to 1m refugees by itself if necessary.
Poland even removed COVID-19 testing entry requirements for refugees entering from Ukraine, and other nations including Chechia have set up fast-track entry and even made trains available to take asylum seekers away from the affected region to safety. The UN Refugee Agency has asked for $190m to be able to effectively able to deal with the unfolding humanitarian crisis and meet the immediate needs of 1.8m people, of which half are either young or elderly.
There are fears this could become the worst refugee crisis seen in Europe since the Second World War, dwarfing the numbers seen coming from the Syrian crisis in 2015.