War inevitably causes suffering for civilians. No exception in Ukraine . Even though Russia claims not to have targeted civilians in their invasion of Ukraine, still waves of refugees are starting to flow into neighboring countries.
The first Ukrainian refugees have reportedly started arriving in Hungary and Romania, while the United Nations says 100,000 have been displaced by the fighting. "Anyone who can escape," said Krisztian Szavla, one of the first refugees to arrive in Hungary, Thursday (24/2/2022), from the Transcarpathia region of western Ukraine.
Another European country, Poland said it would open 9 refugee reception centers along the 535-kilometre (332-mile) border with Ukraine.
"There will definitely be waves of refugees arriving in our country," Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said, as quoted by Al Jazeera. He said Poland would receive "as much as there is on our borders".
The reception center will offer food and medical care, as well as a place to rest and receive information.
The head of Poland's border guard, Tomasz Praga, said there had been an "increase" in the number of people trying to cross the Polish-Ukrainian border in both directions. However, he said the situation was stable.
"Around 29,000 people have crossed the border in both directions over the past 24 hours, including 15,000 coming to Poland," Praga said.
On Thursday afternoon, a scheduled train from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine arrived in the Polish city of Przemysl, near Ukraine's western border, carrying several hundred passengers. Passengers of all ages arrive with bags and backpacks. A number of passengers confessed that they had fled the war.
At the Dorohusk border in eastern Poland, journalists saw cars with Ukrainian flags on their dashboards as they entered the European Union country. A woman with a small child in the passenger seat passed with one hand on the steering wheel and the other wiping tears from her face, AFP news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the United States is ready to accept Ukrainian refugees and that the government is ready to help Ukraine's European neighbors deal with the increasing inflow of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
"Yes," Psaki said when asked by CNN's MJ Lee about whether the US was ready to accept Ukrainian refugees.
"But, we certainly hope that most if not the majority want to go to Europe and neighboring countries. So, we agree. also work with European countries on what is needed, where there is capacity. Poland, for example, where we saw an increase in the flow of refugees over the last 24 hours," he explained.
