MORE THAN THREE million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded on 24 February, the United Nations said today.

“We have now reached the three million mark in terms of movement of people out of Ukraine,” Paul Dillon, spokesman for the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), told reporters in Geneva.

More than 1.4 million of these are children, according to the UN children’s agency Unicef, while 157,000 are third-country nationals, the IOM said.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, had yet to update its figures, and had put the figure until Tuesday at 2.95 million.

Among those, it said, more than half, or 1.7 million, had crossed into Poland.

More than 450,000 are in Romania, close to 350,000 in Moldova, nearly 265,000 in Hungary, and almost 215,000 in Slovakia.

In addition, more than 140,000 had gone to Russia and more than 1,200 to Belarus, according to the UNHCR numbers.

Ireland 

The Cabinet is meeting via video link today to discuss refugees arriving in Ireland. 

Around 20,000 offers to provide accommodation to Ukrainian refugees have been made by people in Ireland to date. 

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Over 15,000 offers have been made through the Government’s pledge portal and some 5,000 offers have made through other non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The Irish Red Cross, which is working with the Department of Children to help house people, has received more than 15,000 pledges of accommodation – a mix of spare rooms and vacant properties.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said at the weekend that Ireland has so far accepted 5,500 Ukrainian refugees, and may take in more than 100,000 people overall.

- © AFP 2022, with reporting by Órla Ryan