Europe faces fastest growing refugee crisis "since World War II"
Ukraine - Over 1.5 million refugees have left Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion of the country, in what the UN has called "the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II."
Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine have crossed into neighboring countries in the last 10 days, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi tweeted on Sunday.
People are crossing into Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, and even Russia. The majority, however, have fled to Poland, according to figures from the country's Border Guard, which said around 922,400 refugees from Ukraine had arrived since the start of the Russian invasion.
On Saturday alone, 129,000 people crossed the border, the authorities tweeted on Sunday, while on Sunday, 39,800 had already entered the country by mid-morning.
According to data from the Polish Foreign Ministry, the majority of the refugees are Ukrainian citizens, though citizens of Uzbekistan, Belarus, India, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, the US and other countries have also been recorded.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, has been allowing refugees to sleep in his official residences as thousands of refugees from the war in Ukraine cross into Poland every day and the population mobilizes to help.
On the initiative of Polish first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda, refugees have already been accommodated in two of the president's official villas for several days, Duda's chancellery chief Adam Kwiatkowski told the PAP news agency. The president's wife intends to pay the refugees a visit soon, he added.
Apart from the presidential palace and the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, the Polish president has four other official villas at his disposal, including on the Hel Peninsula on the Baltic Sea and in the winter sports resort of Wisla.
Cover photo: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire