Ukrainian refugees do not have to fear smugglers, diseases spreading in giant camps or closed borders – at least not yet, writes ‘s foreign journalist Satu Helin.
Just a few weeks ago, the idea that a million Ukrainians would have to flee their country for their lives seemed mainly intimidating.
Now, about a day’s worth of people leave Ukraine for the city of Turku: about 200,000 refugees cross the country’s borders every day.
As of this writing, Ukraine has fled over 2 million people (switching to another service). Tomorrow, the number is likely to be close to 2.5 million, as the number of refugees has only increased in recent days, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
These figures are forcing Europe to thinkwhich means “refugee crisis”.
In Europe, the closest benchmark for Ukraine’s war refugee numbers is World War II, which has left 11 million refugees.
The war in the Balkans, for example, in the 1990s did not cause a similar rapid mobilization of huge numbers of people. A large number of refugees remained in the Balkans.
The biggest refugee crisis of the 21st century, the Syrian war, has forced 6.8 million people to flee abroad in 11 years.
More than a million of them have come to Europe, less than from Ukraine in two weeks. As now in the war in Ukraine, in Syria the vast majority of refugees have remained in neighboring countries.
People had to flee also from Afghanistan last summer when the brutal Taliban regime took over the country. EU countries evacuated 22,000 Afghans during the war.
2015 was the largest refugee spike in Europe in decades. At that time, 1.3 million people in Europe sought asylum in about a year.
Comparing figures alone is not possible perception of the severity or extent of refugee crises.
For example, getting out of Syria was impossible for many. A hostile administration could refuse to issue a passport, and many had to resort to smugglers.
These routes, in turn, were long and difficult, with the elderly and children in particular dying on the journey. And if we managed to get to the Turkish border, for example, the border could be closed.
Even some Syrian refugees have ended up trying to travel to Europe via the Mediterranean. According to the EU border control authority Frontex, it was the most unauthorized road to Europe in 2021.
The Ukrainians are in a terrible situation despite more hope than many other refugees. That is, for those who are not trapped in the midst of a grenade fire in the cities besieged by Russia.
They have been able to leave quickly because the roads are in order and many have a car. In Ukraine, the passport is easily obtained, and Ukrainians do not need a visa to Schengen countries.
The diseases are not spreading because tent camps for tens of thousands of people have not been needed, as in many other refugee crises. People also receive, on average, more empathetic treatment because they are not treated as a single mass.
According to aid organizations the most important question now is how long empathy is enough. Will it continue if the number of refugees is projected to rise to four or five million?
And if Poland, which has already received more than a million refugees, decides that is enough for it, then what will happen?
You can discuss 10.3. until 11 p.m.
This is ‘s daily analysis of the current theme of the Russian invasion.