UN Says The Flow Of Refugees From Ukraine To Central Europe Reaches 1.7 Million People, Dominated By Women And Children

Evacuation of civilians from Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/dsns.gov.ua/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - More than 1.7 million Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion have so far crossed into Central Europe, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday, as thousands more poured across the border.

Poland, which has the largest Ukrainian community in Central Europe, has taken in more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees since the conflict began on February 24, with the milestone passing on Sunday evening.

"This is a million human tragedies, a million people driven from their homes by war," the Polish border guard service wrote on Twitter late on Sunday, citing Reuters March 8.

A total of 1,735,068 civilians, mostly women and children, as men stay home to fight, have so far crossed the border into Central Europe, UNHCR said.

Meanwhile, the EU could see as many as 5 million Ukrainian refugees if Russia's bombing of Ukraine continues, said the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell. Previously, Russia called its actions in Ukraine a 'special operation'.

Some Ukrainians have passed through Central Europe, heading west. In Brussels, student Katerina Debera said she hoped to build a normal life in Belgium.

"I just want to live in peace and freedom. And I hope here it becomes possible," the 20-year-old student from Lviv told Reuters.

Central Europeans, whose memories of Moscow's domination after the Second World War deepen, continue to show support for their eastern neighbor.

Pile of passengers at Darnytsia train station. (Wikimedia Commons/A1)

At the train station of Przemysl, the closest Polish city to its busiest border with Ukraine, about 150 Ukrainian children from orphanages in the Kyiv region arrived by train from Lviv.

While waiting to get off, they gathered at the window of the carriage and peered outside. Some smiled, others gave kisses or waved to volunteers in yellow reflective jackets on the platform. A volunteer came to cheer them up.

In the same city, a children's charity has set up a converted school gymnasium to welcome them.

"We have food for them, there will be a lot of very small children so we will have to change diapers and etc," Przemek Macholak, deputy head of crisis response at Happy Kids, a Polish non-governmental organization, told Reuters.

"Then they will go to the bus again, they will go to Poland, another 20-hour journey," he continued in the hall, where mothers and children rested on cots in the main hall and donations of clothing, food, and drink lined up along the corridor outside.

Happy Kids, which has helped evacuate some 2,000 orphans so far, said they tried not to separate the children once they arrived in Poland.

"Just two days ago we transported 700 children. It is not easy to find a place for anyone, but it is even more difficult to find a place for 700 children in the same place," said Macholak.

To note, the Polish Government passed a bill to create an 8 billion zloty (1.75 billion US dollars) fund to help refugees from Ukraine.