BERLIN — The U.N. refugee agency is reporting that more than 6 million people have now fled Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion.
Geneva-based UNHCR also said Thursday that the number of refugees who have returned back to Ukraine, either partially or fully, has reached more than 1.6 million. It says that number reflects cross-border movements, and doesn’t necessarily indicate “sustainable” returns. The agency says it’s too early to draw conclusions about “definitive trends” on returns.
Matthew Saltmarsh, an agency spokesman, also said Thursday that a total of 2.4 million people who have left Ukraine have moved beyond Ukraine’s immediate border countries which have taken in the lion’s share of refugees from the country. Poland alone has registered more than 3.2 million people who fled Ukraine. It and other European Union member countries have open borders, making tracking where people go a complex endeavor.
On Tuesday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, tweeted that the number of refugees from Ukraine had reached the same 5.7 million figure as the tally from Syria’s 11-year war, which previously was the source of the world’s biggest refugee crisis.
___
KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— Finland’s leaders in favor of applying for NATO membership
— ′ This tears my soul apart ’: A Ukrainian boy and a killing
— Protesters vent fury at French company for staying in Russia
— Ukrainian circus comes to town, and stays in Italy, amid war
Follow all AP stories on Russia’s war on Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
___
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. children’s agency says the war in Ukraine is a “child rights crisis” where education is under attack and nearly 100 youngsters have been killed in just the last month.
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi told the U.N. Security Council Thursday that more children have been injured, millions have been displaced and schools continue to be attacked and used for military purposes.
The school year came to a standstill after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and as of last week at least 15 of 89 UNICEF-supported schools in the country’s east have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting, he said.
In mid-March, over 15,000 schools resumed education in Ukraine mostly through remote learning or in-person hybrid options, he said.
“It is estimated that 3.7 million children in Ukraine and abroad are using online and distance learning options,” Abdi said.
But he stressed that there are still “enormous obstacles” to education including availability for learning, resources, language barriers and movements of children and their families.
“Ultimately, children need an end to this war — their futures hang in the balance,” Abdi said.
___
KYIV, Ukraine — Talks are underway between Kyiv and Moscow on the possible evacuation of 38 “severely wounded” Ukrainian troops from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Ukraine’s deputy PM said Thursday afternoon.
The steel mill is the only remaining stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the ruined port city, and is now surrounded by Russian forces.
“Currently, we are negotiating only about 38 severely wounded fighters, who cannot stand on their own. We are working step by step,” Iryna Vereshchuk wrote in a public post on the Telegram messenger app.
She said that Kyiv hoped to exchange the soldiers for 38 “significant” Russian prisoners of war, before moving on to the next stage of the negotiations. She did not specify what this next stage would concern, but said that there were no negotiations “on the exchange of 500 or 600 people.”
Earlier on Thursday, an official at the Ukrainian President’s Office said that Kyiv hoped to extract “half a thousand” wounded Ukrainian fighters from Azovstal.
Members of the Azov Regiment holed up inside the plant have repeatedly refused to surrender, citing fears of being killed or tortured. On…
Read More: Live updates | More than 6M have fled Ukraine, UN says