Already more than 1.5 million Ukraine refugees
Created: 03/06/2022, 17:24
Refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine arrive at the Hungarian railway station in Zahony.
© Darko Vojinovic/AP/dpa
The stream of refugees from Ukraine is not stopping: every day there are more who are able to leave the war-torn country.
Chancellor Scholz praises European unity.
But there is also criticism.
Geneva/Berlin/Warsaw - After more than a week of war, more and more Ukrainians are fleeing their homeland - especially to EU countries.
According to current estimates by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, 1.5 million have already fled the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
"This is now the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II," the organization said on Twitter on Sunday.
Poland: 964,000 refugees arrived
According to border guards, around 964,000 refugees from the neighboring country have arrived in Poland alone since the beginning of the war.
On Saturday alone, 129,000 people crossed the border, the authority said on Twitter on Sunday.
On Sunday there were already 81,400 by the afternoon.
Most would have used the Medyka and Korczowa border crossings.
According to data from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the majority of the refugees are Ukrainian citizens.
But there are also people from Uzbekistan, Belarus, India, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, the USA and several other countries.
Poland's President Andrzej Duda is also offering some rooms to accommodate the refugees.
On the initiative of Poland's first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda, refugees have been staying in two of the president's official villas for several days, Duda's chancellor Adam Kwiatkowski told the PAP news agency on Sunday.
The President's wife will soon visit the people there.
Scholz praises European solidarity
After his meeting with EU Commission President von der Leyen, Chancellor Scholz praised European solidarity: "It is good and not a matter of course that all EU states take in children, women and men together, quickly and unbureaucratically," he explained via Twitter.
It is clear that Europe sticks together.
“Together we help those who seek refuge from the war.
And we stick together.”
“In this war, Europe is drawing closer together.
This is shown by the unified reaction with sanctions to the Russian attack and the willingness to take in refugees from Ukraine.” He spoke about this with the President of the EU Commission in Berlin.
According to the information, the consultations also included the informal European Council on March 10th and 11th in Versailles.
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Von der Leyen spoke of a "good meeting".
Both sides would "work together on the humanitarian situation, diplomatic initiatives, sanctions and energy security," the commission chief tweeted.
Von der Leyen announced that the European summit in mid-March would send “important signals” of European unity and strength.
France criticizes Great Britain
Meanwhile, France accuses Britain of inappropriate treatment of war refugees from Ukraine.
Around 150 Ukrainians who wanted to travel across the English Channel to relatives in Great Britain were asked by the British side to first apply for visas in Paris or Brussels, criticized France's Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, as the newspaper "Le Parisien" reported on Sunday.
The day before, the minister wrote to his British counterpart Priti Patel and complained about a "completely inappropriate answer" and a "lack of humanity".
According to French information, Britain is considering temporarily setting up a consulate in Calais in view of the refugees from Ukraine in order to issue visas to Ukrainians directly on site.
"It becomes imperative that, exceptionally and for the time of the crisis, your consular post is able to issue family reunification visas directly in Calais," Darmanin wrote, according to the newspaper.
It would be incomprehensible if consular reinforcements were deployed across Europe and even Ukraine, but not from Britain.
British Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, meanwhile, defended Britain's visa rules, the PA news agency reported on Sunday.
You have to make sure that only those people who really need help come into the country, and they are real refugees.
British security checks on entry served to ensure this.
The refugees come from a war zone in which foreign fighters are also active.
Raab said that Britain was expecting around 200,000 refugees from Ukraine just for family reunification purposes.
dpa