Ukraine Conflict Emergency Response: Situational Report #01

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are fleeing the conflict heading west, either crossing the border into neighboring countries or left internally displaced.

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe with approximately 40 million inhabitants. In 2014, Ukrainian peninsula Crimea was occupied by Russia. Since 2014, the South Eastern region of Donbas was affected by war: so-called separatists backed by Russian military occupied parts of Donbass. Occasional shelling and shooting led to approximately 14,000 victims (people killed) since 2014, many of them children. In 2014/15, 1.5 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) left Crimea and the Russian occupied territories in Donbas and are living in Central and Western Ukraine now.

A full-scale military attack (invasion) of Ukraine was started by Russia in the night of February 23/24, 2022. Towns and other targets in all regions of Ukraine have been shelled or attacked with rockets and tanks invaded the country from three directions (north, east and south). Fighting is progressing for two days now and is continuing. Residential buildings have been destroyed and lives have been lost. The situation is extremely unclear. Hundreds of thousands of people started their escape from cities to rural areas or are heading west. A major wave of refugees is expected to arrive in neighboring countries such as Romania and Poland.