Thread by @lewis_goodall

As well as speaking to scores of refugees over the past few days I’ve also been speaking to officials and (civilian and military) at the at the border about the humanitarian and logistical situation and who is coming over. This is what they’ve told me- 🧵

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1498929658427056129

Who are the groups that are coming over? Am told this divides into several groups

1) Ukrainian women/kids- this is the vast majority of the arrivals. There are also elderly. Mums are often arriving with two, three, four kids (sometimes other people’s kids and more) and it’s…

…v hard for them. They’re arriving exhausted. They’ve been travelling for days. Some people (and kids) can no longer walk and have to be carried over. It’s subzero at night. We’re told of people lying on the ground unable to move. No water, no food.

Most of these people have somewhere to go when they arrive or are being picked up by family/friends. Nearly everyone is either picked up from the crossings or from the 9 emergency refugee centres the polish govt has set up along the border.

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1498638480980811777

2) non-Ukrainian residents: these include huge numbers of students (lots of big universities in Ukraine), many of whom face the prospect of never being able to finish their studies. We spoke to one student yesterday whose university building was bombed in Kharkiv.

These students come from all over the world, especially Central Europe & north and west Africa. There are also huge numbers of guest workers, labourers, service workers etc- largely from places Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan etc.

Heartbreakingly, there are also the double refugees…

…those fled from other conflicts, received safe harbour in Ukraine and are now having to uproot their lives and flee all over again. We met a man who had left Afghanistan five years ago, set up a mobile phone shop in Kyiv and is now a refugee once more.

The students are being helped home by their embassies. The guest workers/immigrants have a bit of help but sometimes have nowhere to go. Some have nowhere else to go beyond the Polish temporary accommodation centres.

Ditto for the double refugees who can’t rely on any help from their home states, for obvious reasons. No-one knows when these people can return- it poses an enormous logistical and humanitarian challenge for the border authorities, especially with kids. A Polish Major told…

…me that Poland needs help from other European countries. Asked him if Poland could cope. He said: “I don’t know. We’ve never had a situation like this before.”

3) Then there are people from the Belarusian border, itself separated into two groups. We have it on good authority that A) political refugees from the Lukashenko regime are trying to make it across B) some of those people held up at Belarusian/Polish border and allegedly used…

…by Putin as a tool of political pressure are making their way down to the Ukrainian border to try and make it across. After being refused entry by Poland for so long the Polish govt are allowing them through- there’s no way really to discriminate. Just another way this war…

…has transformed the politics of this region.

4) this is the smallest number but we’ve been told there is concern within Polish military of Russian agents/provocateurs trying to make it across…

…and use it to a) spread disinformation (we think we’ve seen some of this at the border with people especially keen to talk to journalists and have a particular line to take) and b) Polish military concerned to try and gather intelligence on NATO troop movements/installations.

We’re told Polish military has identified some of these people and detained them.

Again, the vast majority are Ukrainian nationals and residents who are deeply desperate. I can’t overstate the numbers and what a logistical and humanitarian challenge this is for Poland and neighbouring states. As Russian bombardment gets worse, the flows will intensify further.

Estimates are now at 650,000 refugees (UNHCR) in a week. 450,000 in Poland alone. EU estimate we could see 7 million refugees or displaced: around 16% of Ukraine’s population.

This is the context of the exodus.

https://twitter.com/joelmgunter/status/1499016901963440128

UNHCR: "Around 660,000 refugees have now fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries in the past six days...At this rate, the situation looks set to become Europe’s largest refugee crisis this century."

That's as of 1st March.

Update: UN now estimates 875,000 people have fled Ukraine. Equivalent to nearly 2% of the Ukrainian population.