The waiting time to cross the borders ranged from a few hours at small crossings to several days at the busiest, such as Medyka, in Poland, where lines on the Ukrainian side stretched for tens of kilometers.
“The queues are huge,” said Polish Prime Minister Michal Dworczyk’s chief of staff, adding that the border police were allowing people without documents to enter and the government was talking to its Ukrainian counterparts to simplify procedures.
“If you count the border points in operation, there are certainly more than a quarter of a million people at the borders,” he said.
This is what we know about the refugee crisis that has been unleashed thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
How many Ukrainian refugees are there so far?
“More than 500,000 refugees have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries,” Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said on Twitter on Monday.
More than 500,000 refugees have now fled from Ukraine into neighboring countries.
— Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi)
February 28, 2022
Shortly before, Grandi’s office had reported that 499,412 refugees had been registered, fleeing heavy fighting between the Russian and Ukrainian armies.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, mostly children and women, since men of fighting age are forced to stay in the country, fled in overflowing trains, cars and even on foot with their suitcases.
Which countries give refuge to Ukraine?
Poland
Poland took in a large part of them, some 281,000, according to the latest UNHCR data.
Polish border guards said about 100,000 people arrived from Ukraine on Sunday, and more than 28,000 arrived overnight from Sunday to Monday.
In Poland, where 1.5 million Ukrainians already lived before the Russian offensive, people organize on social networks to raise money and medicine and also offer free housing, food, work or transportation to refugees.
Hungary
Hungary hosted 84,586 refugees, the UNHCR said on Monday.
The country has five border posts with Ukraine and several neighboring cities, such as Zahony, have made public buildings available to accommodate Ukrainians.
Some civilians went there to offer food or help.
moldova
Some 36,398 refugees arrived on Moldovan territory on Monday.