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The Financial Express

8.3m people will flee Ukraine this year, UNHCR predicts

| Updated: April 26, 2022 18:02:44


Ukrainian refugees wait to collect aid and register at a centre for internally displaced people, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in the town of Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine Apr 25, 2022. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino Ukrainian refugees wait to collect aid and register at a centre for internally displaced people, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in the town of Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine Apr 25, 2022. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is expecting some 8.3 million people to flee Ukraine this year, revising up its previous projection, a spokesperson said on Tuesday.

More than 12.7 million people have fled their homes in the past two months, including 7.7 million people displaced internally and more than 5 million who have fled over borders, UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told a UN news briefing, reports Reuters. 

UNHCR had previously planned for some 4 million refugees in the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24 but this was surpassed last month.

"The scale of the crisis, definitely the rapidity of people fleeing, we have not seen in recent times," Mantoo told the briefing. Syria remains the biggest current refugee crisis in the world, with 6.8 million people having fled, she added.

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