Segun Akanni, Toronto, Canada 
The United Nations has said that more than four million Ukrainians have now fled the country to escape Russia’s “senseless war”.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees through its chief, Filippo Grandi, made this disclosure Wednesday morning.
“Refugees from Ukraine are now four million, five weeks after the start of the Russian attack,” Grandi said on his verified Twitter handle.
The UNHCR estimates 4,019,287 Ukrainians had fled across the country’s borders since the February 24 invasion, with more than 2.3 million having headed West into Poland.
The UN boss who only just arrived in Ukraine ahead of humanitarian talks in Lviv expresses his yearning to collaborate with the Ukrainian authorities in discussing measures for palliation for displaced refugees geared toward a possible de-escalation of the lingering crisis.
”I have just arrived in Ukraine. In Lviv, I will discuss with the authorities, the UN and other partners ways to increase our support to people affected and displaced by this senseless war,” he stated.
The number of refugees has surpassed UNHCR’s initial estimate that the war could create up to four million, as the agency says the speed and scale of the displacement is unprecedented in Europe since World War II.
Women and children, much expectedly, account for 90 per cent of those who have fled, while Ukrainian men, aged 18 to 60, by executive fiat, are eligible for military call-up and cannot leave.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration, moreover, says that in addition to Ukrainian refugees, close to 200,000 non-Ukrainians living, studying and working in the country have also left.
“They need urgent life-saving aid,” the organization says Wednesday, adding that it has responsively ”scaled up its effort to prevent the trafficking of persons both in the country and among those moving throughout the region.”
Notably, prior to Russia’s February 24 invasion, Ukraine had a population of 37 million in the regions under government control, excluding Russia-annexed Crimea and the pro-Russian separatist regions in the East.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Wednesday played down hopes of a breakthrough following peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegates in Istanbul on Tuesday.
“We cannot state that there was anything too promising or any breakthroughs,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that Moscow, notwithstanding, considered it “positive” that Kyiv had started outlining its demands in writing.
AFP
