UNHCR Says Ukrainian War Refugees Hit 3 Million, Majority In Poland

Refugee children from Ukraine arrive in Przemysl Poland by train. (Wikimedia Commons/Mirek Pruchnick)

JAKARTA - Nearly three weeks into the war, the number of Ukrainians fleeing fighting and Russian bombing abroad has crossed 3 million, the United Nations says.

Some 3.000.381 people have so far left Ukraine, according to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). It bases its aid plan on 4 million refugees but says the figure is likely to rise.

After Sunday's Russian attack on the Yavoriv military base near Lviv, several people from western Ukraine have now joined the flow of refugees across the border.

"Everyone thought Western Ukraine was quite safe until they started attacking Lviv," said Zhanna, 40, a mother from Kharkiv, who was heading to Poland to reunite with her godmother who had left Ukraine a few days earlier.

"We left Kharkiv for Kirovohrad. We want to stay there. We don't want to go abroad," she said at the Przemysl train station, the closest city to Poland's busiest border with Ukraine.

"Then they started attacking Kirovohrad, they started attacking Lviv and it was difficult to avoid the bomb with a small child," Zhanna said, adding her husband chose to stay in Ukraine.

Most of the refugees are in countries bordering Ukraine, such as Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova, with more than half, or 1.8 million people in Poland.

However, large numbers of refugees are starting to move further west, with 300.000 people having gone so far to Western Europe, UNHCR said on Tuesday.

"If we really show the best of ourselves in solidarity, we can overcome (this challenge)," said the EU's top migration official Ylva Johansson in Brussels, Belgium.

Ukrainian refugees crossing the border into Poland. (Wikimedia Commons/mvs.gov.ua/Міністерство ав аїни)

In Romania, Ukrainian women and children, some holding teddy bears, continued to flow through the Siret border where temperatures plunged to minus 2 Celsius (28 Fahrenheit) overnight.

Pulling their suitcases and carrying backpacks, they were greeted by Romanian firefighters and volunteers, who carried their belongings onto the bus that carried them onward.

Further south in Isaccea, a busy border crossing on the Danube, Tanya, from Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, said she fled to save her child's life.

"On the way here I cried because I love my country. I wanted to live in Ukraine but I couldn't. Because they are destroying everything now," she said, holding back tears.

As for Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, some refugees are returning to Ukraine, either to retrieve more goods or hoping to return forever.

Liudmila, who did not give her last name, will return to Ukraine to pick up school supplies for her children in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.

"On Mondays, they start learning online and that's why I have to pick up some things for them - books, to write," he said.

Another woman, who did not give her name, will return to Odessa with her toddler. "We want to go home," she said as she crossed the border into Ukraine.

Russia has denied targeting civilians, describing its actions as a "special military operation". While Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless pretext for Russia's invasion of the democratic nation of 44 million people.

Meanwhile, UNHCR said those who fled early in the conflict mostly had resources and contacts outside of Ukraine. But now, many refugees have left in a hurry and are more vulnerable.

"We see a lot of elderly people and a lot of people with disabilities, really people who are hoping and hoping until the last moment that the situation will change," said Tatiana Chabac, an aid worker at UNHCR.