One million refugees have fled Ukraine in a week, UN says

The U.N. refugee agency said Thursday that 1 million people have fled Ukraine in a week, an exodus without precedent in this century for its speed, AP reported.

The tally from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees amounts to more than 2% of Ukraine’s population — which the World Bank counted at 44 million at the end of 2020 — on the move across borders in just seven days. The agency cautions that the outflows are far from finished: It has predicted that as many as 4 million people could eventually leave Ukraine, and even that projection could be revised upward.

On Twitter, U.N. High Commissioner Filippo Grandi wrote, “In just seven days we have witnessed the exodus of one million refugees from Ukraine to neighboring countries.”

Grandi appealed for the “guns to fall silent” in Ukraine so humanitarian aid can reach millions more still inside the country.