Europe 1 with AFP 11:45 a.m., March 15, 2022, modified at 11:49 a.m., March 15, 2022
In the past 20 days, around 1.4 million children have been forced to flee the country, around 55 every minute or "virtually one child every second", said James Elder, a UNICEF spokesman.
Now the number of people fleeing Ukraine has reached three million.
Almost every second that passes, a child in Ukraine becomes a refugee, the United Nations Children's Fund said on Tuesday, commenting on the steady stream of people fleeing the country since February 24 and the Russian invasion.
In the past 20 days, around 1.4 million children have been forced to flee the country, around 55 per minute or "virtually one child per second", said James Elder, a UNICEF spokesman, during of a regular UN press briefing in Geneva.
In total, the number of people who fled Ukraine reached more than 2.95 million people, according to the latest count from the High Commissioner for Refugees, Tuesday around 10 a.m. GMT.
>> READ ALSO -
The first steps of little Ukrainian refugees in a French school
“This crisis, in terms of speed and scale, is unprecedented since the Second World War,” said James Elder.
The spokesperson, also echoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres, stressed that these children "are subject to the significant risk of separation, violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking".
Three million refugees
At the same time, the number of people who have fled Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion of the country by the Russian army has reached three million, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday. IOM) in Geneva.
"We have now reached the three million mark in terms of population movements out of Ukraine," IOM spokesman Paul Dillon told a regular UN press briefing.