International reports have warned of the worsening humanitarian situation for Ukrainian refugees in European countries, especially as the flows are very fast and random, what the United Nations described as “the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.”
The authorities and the United Nations expect the influx of refugees to increase at a time when the Russian army continues to advance in Ukraine, and with the fighting continuing around the capital, Kyiv.
The number of people who arrived from Ukraine to Poland to escape the Russian invasion has exceeded one million, according to the Polish border guards.
On March 4, the EU interior ministers unanimously agreed in Brussels on the need to provide temporary protection for Ukrainians fleeing the war in their country, by resorting to a memorandum dating back to 2001 allowing them to stay and work in the EU for up to 3 years.
Britain, however, remained conservative about the influx of numbers, and the London government announced that it could not fully open the kingdom’s gates to refugees, in response to France being criticized for its “lack of humanity”.
27,000 in Germany alone
The German Federal Police has so far registered the arrival of 27,491 Ukrainian war refugees to Germany since the start of the war, according to a spokesman for the German Interior Ministry in Berlin, pointing out that the real number of war refugees from Ukraine may be significantly higher because Federal Police data only reflects a part of the number of refugees arriving due to the lack of border controls.
Ukrainians do not need an entry visa (Visa) to travel to European Union countries, including Germany, and therefore displaced Ukrainians can travel and enter all European Union countries and stay in them for 90 days without a visa, provided that the traveler holds a biometric passport, and given the current situation and the war in Ukraine Even the displaced are allowed to cross the border without passports.
Refugees cross into neighboring countries in the west such as Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Moldova.
Are quick actions enough?
Observers believe that European countries were compelled to take quick measures regarding Ukrainian refugees with the onset of the crisis and its rapid deterioration, but they also believe that European countries will suffer difficulties and crises in terms of organizing presence and managing refugee affairs in the future, especially since Europe has been suffering for years from migration flows that have increased Unprecedented since 2011.
In this context, the head of the European Center for Studies and Intelligence Jassim Muhammad told “Sky News Arabia” that the numbers announced by the UNHCR indicate that the migration wave from Ukraine will exceed many times the migrants to Europe over the past years, which means that the matter will be It has serious repercussions in the future.
“Estimates indicate that the number of refugees has exceeded 5 or 6 million due to the Ukrainian crisis,” Mohammed said, noting that quick procedures do not enable countries to examine refugee files, and some of them arrive without papers.
The European expert believes that the EU does not have any strategy in dealing with the refugee situation, and has been divided among itself for years on this file, noting that the crisis has been witnessing a significant exacerbation since 2015, and it is still present today with regard to the management of refugee affairs and their distribution.
Muhammad explains that Germany has largely opened its doors to Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the crisis, as part of a comprehensive strategy to support Ukraine, whether in the field of defense or at the diplomatic and humanitarian level, while he sees a contradiction in the British position, which was also characterized by strength in strengthening and supporting the Ukrainian position, but he refused to receive refugees in large numbers.
The crisis of the fugitives inside
In a related context, the United Nations also warned of the crisis of the displaced inside Ukraine, and they did not leave the borders, as it estimated that at least 160,000 people fled the war in Ukraine and were displaced within their country.
The European Union believes that this figure could rise to 7 million and that 18 million Ukrainians will be affected by the war.
“Although these are very rough estimates, the numbers are huge and we must prepare for this type of emergency of historic proportions,” European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues for the second week, as the Russian forces focused their pressure on the major Ukrainian cities, while the humanitarian conditions for civilians worsened due to the failure of the ceasefire agreement to open safe corridors in several besieged cities.