Ukrainian refugees exceed 8 million across Europe

Geneva, Feb 2 (EFE).- Ukrainian refugees who have fled the war-torn country into other European countries since the beginning of the Russian invasion have crossed the eight million threshold, the UN refugee body (UNHCR) said on Thursday.

Some 4.8 million of them are being hosted under various European protection programs, according to the UNHCR, which has recorded more than 18 million departures from Ukraine since February 24, 2022, as well as 9.9 million returns.

With 1.5 million refugees, Poland remained the country with the most Ukrainian refugees, followed by Germany with 1 million, the Czech Republic with 486,000, Italy with 169,000, Spain with 161,000 and the United Kingdom with 158,000.

Further down the list come Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and France, UNHCR statistics showed.

The number of internally displaced Ukrainians, meanwhile, stood at 6.5 million, according to the latest data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN.

The war in Ukraine has unleashed the largest wave of refugees in the last half century, exceeding the number of those who left countries such as Syria and Venezuela amid conflicts.EFE

abc/smq/jt