More than 7 million Ukrainians have been displaced internally since Russia invaded roughly two months ago, while another 5 million have fled their homeland.
Roughly 7.7 million Ukrainian citizens, or about 17.5% of the country’s population, are internally displaced, according to the third Ukraine Internal Displacement Report released on Thursday by the International Organization for Migration, an agency of the United Nations. Most of the displaced Ukrainians formerly resided in the eastern part of the country.
The latest assessment, conducted from April 11-17, revealed that at least 60% of the displaced people are women, while more than half of them reported a lack of some food products. More than 80% of the displaced households had a child under the age of 17, while 30% of them had at least one child under the age of 5.
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Across Ukraine, more than 5 million people have fled their homes since the start of the war, the Geneva-based United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported this week. More than half of the total, over 2.8 million, fled to Poland, while no other country has taken in more than 800,000 refugees.
“We’ve seen about a quarter of Ukraine’s population, more than 12 million people in total … have been forced to flee their homes, so this is a staggering amount of people,” UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said.
The 12 million Ukrainians who have either left the country or relocated within it represent more than 25% of the entire country’s 44 million citizens.
During the beginning of Russia’s military offensive, which is now entering its eighth week, Moscow deployed troops south from Belarus that sought to work their way to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. These were kept miles from the city center after meeting stiffer-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, and they ultimately withdrew from the area as Russia opted to change its military operations to focus on the Donbas region.
The Donbas region is in the eastern part of Ukraine, and there is a significant pro-Russian separatist presence. Fighting between the two sides has been ongoing since 2014. In addition to focusing on this region, Russia is also looking to capture the city of Mariupol, which is further south and along the coast of the Sea of Azov. The capture of this city would provide Russia with the territory to travel from the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and the Donbas region to Russia’s sovereign territory.
Nearly 3.5 million of the 7.7 million who have been internally displaced by the war previously lived in the eastern part of the country, the report outlines.
In addition to the millions who have been forced out of their homes, thousands of civilians have been killed, though the exact number is imprecise.
There have been more than 2,200 people killed and nearly 2,900 wounded, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced on Wednesday, though the agency specifically warns that they believe “the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”
Ukrainian officials estimate that the death toll in Mariupol alone, according to some, could exceed 20,000, while more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
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As Russian forces withdrew from the suburbs around Kyiv and Ukrainians began assessing the damage done to the territories briefly inhabited by Russian troops, atrocities were soon discovered. In Bucha, a mass grave filled with hundreds of bodies was found, while other civilians were found shot and killed with their wrists bound behind them. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “In terms of human casualties, the worst situation is in Borodyanka.”
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said last week it had begun investigating roughly 5,800 allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian forces.
