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Two major Polish cities, including the country’s capital Warsaw and Krakow, the second largest city, lack space for Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian attacks.
Almost 2.6 million Ukrainians had fled the country due to the Russian invasion as of Saturday, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), most of whom (1.6 million) took refuge in Poland.
A woman fleeing Ukraine is overwhelmed with emotion at a border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Friday, March 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
“300,000 refugees arrived in [Warsaw] since Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24,” Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski wrote in a Friday tweet. “Our city remains the main destination for Ukrainian refugees. The situation is getting more complicated every day. Warsaw stands and will #StopWithUkraine. Support. Donate.”
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Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski said the country’s second-largest city has taken in 100,000 Ukrainians and is “gradually losing its ability to take in new waves of refugees” in a Facebook post on Friday. He added that officials can only provide places for refugees in neighboring cities.
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“We have been helping Ukraine since the early days of the war, but as a local government we are primarily responsible for the citizens,” he said, according to a translation of his speech published by the Washington Post. He added that more refugees arriving could affect the “functioning of the city”.
Hungary, Slovakia and the Russian Federation have also received hundreds of thousands of refugees. More than 300,000 people have taken in other European countries, according to the UNHCR.
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The mass displacement marks “the biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the World War”. [II]’, the International Organization for Migration said last week. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) called it “the fastest exodus of refugees this century”.
UNHCR reports that some 12.65 million people have been affected by war zones in Ukraine since Russia’s February 24 invasion.