‘One child refugee every 60 seconds’: United Nations on Russia’s war on Ukraine

With the fighting between Russia and Ukraine set to enter the fourth week, the United Nations on Tuesday said one child was becoming a refugee every minute due to the conflict.

A spokesperson for the United Nations’ children’s agency – UNICEF – said that over the last 20 days, more than 70,000 children had become refugees every day.

“On average, every day over the last 20 days in Ukraine, more than 70,000 children have become refugees… essentially one child becoming a refugee every minute since the conflict started,” the spokesperson was quoted by news agency AFP.

The United Nations estimates that over three million have become refugees since Moscow attacked Ukraine on February 24, and that around 1.4 million of them are children.

Last week the Ukrainian chief prosecutor’s office said that 79 children had been killed and more than 100 wounded since Russia’s ‘special military operation’ started.

According to the prosecutors’ office, most of the children were from the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Kherson and Zhytomyr regions. These regions, notably, have borne the brunt of Russia’s assaults.

A Russian airstrike last week on a children’s hospital in the southern-eastern city of Mariupol killed three people, including a child, and injured 17 others, leading to increasing concerns over the death of children in the war-torn country.

Meanwhile, the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv issued a warning of country-wide air attacks on Tuesday. In an online post, the region urged its citizens to head to shelters. On Tuesday, nine people were killed and another nine were injured after the Russian forces targeted a television tower outside Rivne.