GENEVA, March 1, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Some 677,000 refugees have fled the

conflict in Ukraine for safety in neighbouring countries, while around a
million people are estimated to be internally displaced, the United Nations
said Tuesday.

   The UN Refugee Agency chief Filippo Grandi said the numbers of people on
the move was "extremely worrying", as Russian troops pound cities in eastern
Ukraine, on day six of Moscow's invasion.

   Grandi told a press conference in Geneva that the latest figure he had was
677,000 people who had fled from Ukraine to neighbouring countries.

   "We are looking at what could become Europe's largest refugee crisis this
century," he said.

   Grandi said that around half had fled to Poland, whilst roughly 90,000 had
reached Hungary, 60,000 Moldova, 50,000 Slovakia and 40,000 Romania.

   At an earlier press conference, Shabia Mantoo, a spokeswoman for UNHCR,
the UN Refugee Agency, said the numbers were "exponentially increasing".

   She said that all neighbouring countries had so far kept their borders
open for refugees fleeing Ukraine -- including a "sizeable number" who have
crossed into Russia.

   "UNHCR urges governments to continue to maintain access to territory for
all those fleeing: Ukrainians, and third-country nationals living in Ukraine,
who are now forced to escape the violence," she said.

   - Internally displaced -

   Meanwhile in Stockholm, Karolina Lindholm Billing, the UNHCR
representative to Ukraine, estimated that a million people had been
internally displaced by the Russian invasion.

   "We estimate that it has to be about one million people who have fled
internally or who are currently on a train, a bus or in a car trying to get
to a safety," she told a press conference in Stockholm.

   She cautioned that the agency still did not have reliable figures.

   Mantoo said that at the Polish border, UNCHR staff reported that people
who managed to cross the frontier had been waiting up to 60 hours in freezing
temperatures.

   "Refugees who have the means are finding their own accommodation, whereas
others are being hosted with local communities who have opened their homes,
or sheltered in reception centres," she said.

   There are queues of up to 20 hours to enter Romania, said Mantoo, with
volunteers providing interpretation services, while it is taking 24 hours to
cover the 60 kilometres (37 miles) between the Ukrainian port city of Odessa
and the border with Moldova.

   New arrivals in Moldova are being accommodated in temporary reception
centres, while the UNHCR is distributing relief items, including blankets and
sleeping bags, with an airlift from Dubai of more supplies due to arrive on
Wednesday.

   The UN's International Organization for Migration said an estimated
470,000 third-country nationals were living in Ukraine, including a large
number of overseas students and labour migrants.

   "While 6,000 of those have been confirmed to have arrived in Moldova and
Slovakia alone, many remain stranded amidst the worsening security
situation," spokeswoman Safa Msehli told journalists in Geneva.

   "We appeal to states to protect people forced from their homes due to the
fighting and to allow them to cross Ukraine's borders to safety -- without
discrimination."