U.N. Reports That More Than Four Million Refugees Have Fled Ukraine

The number of people fleeing the war in Ukraine has exceeded four million, the United Nations said Wednesday, “surpassing the refugee count the organization predicted for the entire war in just under five weeks,” the Wall Street Journal reported on March 30.

“That number exceeds the worst-case predictions made at the start of the war,” wrote Bassam Hatoum and Jamey Keaten of the Associated Press.

Half of the refugees from Ukraine are children, according to UNHCR and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, they reported.

“The exodus, staggering in its scale and speed, has turned into the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II,” noted Ellen Francis of the Washington Post.