They issued a call for urgent action to protect internally displaced people in Ukraine.
“According to the most recent estimates, 7.7 million people are internally displaced as a result of the conflict, which is equivalent to 17.5% of the entire population,” said the experts in a joint statement.
“These people have had to leave their homes and everything behind in a desperate attempt to escape death and destruction. They are traumatized and need urgent protection, including psychosocial support.”
The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, says that since Feb. 24, when Russia launched its war on its neighbor, 5,707,967 people have fled the country.
More than 3.1 million of those fleeing have gone to Poland and over 854,000 to Romania, more than half a million to Hungary, almost half a million to Moldova, and nearly 400,000 to Slovakia.
The UN Human Rights Office said Thursday that 3,280 civilians have been killed and 3,451 injured since the start of the war, but the “actual figures are considerably higher.”
