Nearly one child a second has become a refugee since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says UN

With nearly 1.5 million children fleeing Ukraine since the Russian incursion began on 24 February, almost one child per second has become a refugee, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

“Every day, over the past 20 days in Ukraine, more than 70,000 children have become refugees,” Unicef spokesperson James Elder said. That’s 55 children fleeing the country every minute, he added.

Of every 10 persons fleeing the military warfare launched by Russian president Vladimir Putin, nine are women and children, Mr Elder said, warning that youngsters are prey to trafficking crimes as they are displaced to unfamiliar new environments.

Adding that trafficking remains a serious concern for authorities, Mr Elder said: “To give a sense of the border that I used to visit – the main border, Medyka, Poland to Ukraine – it is scores of people standing around buses and minivans calling out names of capital cities – or at least it was a week ago – people getting onto those.”

“The vast, vast majority of course are people with wonderful intentions and great generosity, but there is no doubt given what we understand of trafficking in Europe, that that remains a very, very grave issue,” Mr Elder said.

A total of 103 boys and girls have been killed in Ukraine since the Russia-led invasion began three weeks ago, Ukraine’s prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said. Another hundred have been wounded in their efforts to escape the conflict-marred country, she added.

More than 400 educational establishments have been attacked and at least 59 of them have been destroyed by the invading Russian forces, the prosecutor general said.

The number of refugees emerging from Ukraine breached the 3 million mark on Tuesday, alarming the authorities of the soaring cost of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the European nation. Officials have suggested that the number may touch four million soon.

“We have now reached the three million mark in terms of movements of people out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries. And among these people there are some 157,000 third-country nationals,” spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Paul Dillon said.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres had warned on Monday that Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine and against the country’s civilians was “reaching terrifying proportions” even as the global efforts to ask Russia to stop the war continued.

There have been “indiscriminate attacks time and again on critical infrastructure, particularly water has been targeted”, Mr Elder said.

The displaced families and others taking cover are undoing all heaters to take water coolant out as a last resort as something to drink, Mr Elder said, citing anecdotes from colleagues working on the ground.

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