- Austria's far right woos anti-vaxxers with fund for vaccine 'victims'
- Long wait for justice in India's backlogged courts
- Rohingya refugees detail worsening violence in Myanmar
- Rescuers comb muddy riverbanks after Japan floods kill six
- Sri Lankan leftist leader sworn in after landslide election win
- Indonesia, NZ deny Papua rebel claim 'bribe' paid for pilot release
- Swearing, shoeys and swift legs: Singapore GP talking points
- South Korea warns of 'decisive' action against trash balloons
- Football Australia names Tony Popovic as Socceroos coach
- Japan quake, flood victim attempts fresh start with wife's memory
- Japan quake, flood victim attemps fresh start with wife's memory
- Asian markets extend gains as focus turns to US inflation
- Six dead after floods in central Japan: media
- Australian golf prodigy suffers career-threatening eye injury
- Gaza hospital a symbol of the ruin of war
- October 7: how Israel's deadliest day unfolded
- Bibles, sneakers, silver coins: Trump's merch for sale
- Met Opera opens season with tech-heavy 'Grounded'
- Colombia's Inirida flower: from 'weed' to emblem for UN meeting
- Colombia rebel group imposes control in restive coca zone
- Rams fight back to upset 49ers, Cowboys lose again
- Sri Lankan leftist leader to take office after landslide election win
- 300-kilo WWI bomb removed in Belgrade
- Zelensky in US to explain war plan to Biden, Harris, Trump
- 'Atrocious' Sudan war pushing refugees further afield: UNHCR chief
- 'Convergence' growing on global plastics treaty: UN environment chief
- MLB White Sox fall to Padres to match one-season loss mark
- All-Australian Ripper squad captures LIV Golf team crown
- Barnier promises compromise from France's embattled new govt
- Zelensky arrives in US to explain war plan to Biden
- Barca rout Villarreal but Ter Stegen hurt, Atletico draw at Rayo
- Darnold shines for Vikings, Steelers and Eagles win
- Atletico held to draw at Rayo Vallecano
- Marseille stun Lyon with 95th-minute winner after early red card
- Gabbia ends AC Milan's derby pain with late winner against Inter
- Surging Ko claims LPGA Queen City crown in spectacular style
- 'Impossible': Alcaraz shoots down Federer comparisons after Laver Cup win
- Scholz's party beats far-right AfD in east German state vote
- Verstappen says 'silly' swearing row could hasten F1 exit
- Calls for Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the abyss
- Israel and Hezbollah urged to avoid 'catastrophe'
- Colombia battles fires as drought fuels Latin American flames
- Pressure piles on new French government from day one
- Arteta proud as Arsenal salvage point from 'impossible' task
- Barca rout Villarreal in thriller but Ter Stegen hurt
- Roma stroll past Udinese as fans protest De Rossi sacking
- Horschel outduels McIlroy to win PGA Championship play-off
- Audiences summon 'Beetlejuice' to top of N. America box office for third week
- Stones salvages point for Man City against 10-man Arsenal
- Egypt fears 'all out' regional war: foreign minister to AFP
Four million Ukrainian refugees flee war
More than four million Ukrainians have fled the country within five weeks to escape Russia's "senseless war", the United Nations said Wednesday.
The speed and scale of the exodus is unprecedented in Europe since World War II, and has seen a wave of empathy extended to the women, children and elderly men who have made it across the border.
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 4,019,287 Ukrainians had fled across the country's borders since the February 24 invasion, with more than 2.3 million going west into Poland.
The flow has already surpassed UNHCR's initial estimate that the war could eventually create up to four million refugees.
"Refugees from Ukraine are now four million, five weeks after the start of the Russian attack," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said on Twitter.
"I have just arrived in Ukraine. In Lviv I will discuss with the authorities, the UN and other partners ways to increase our support to people affected and displaced by this senseless war."
Women and children account for 90 percent of those who have fled. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are eligible for military call-up and cannot leave.
The initial daily flow of refugees heading west has slowed over the last week and remained steady at around 40,000.
- Welcoming hand -
In total, more than a quarter of the population living in government-controlled areas before the invasion have been forced to flee their homes, with an estimated 6.5 million uprooted people still within the country's borders.
Besides the Ukrainians who have fled, another 200,000 non-Ukrainians who were living, working or studying in the country have managed to escape.
But the bare figures, however stark, do not reflect the trauma of having to flee with a few hastily-packed possessions and head for an unknown future, whether by car, in a packed train or on foot.
Nor do the numbers reflect the warm hand of welcome and outpouring of solidarity shown by Europeans, whether governments or charities and individual volunteers.
Nearly six in 10 Ukrainian refugees have headed west to Poland, the biggest of four EU countries bordering Ukraine. The country already had a well-established Ukrainian community of 1.5 milion people, largely migrant workers.
It has been exceptionally generous in welcoming its neighbours and has been a country from which refugees feel they could return easily.
From the start of the invasion to Tuesday, 364,000 people crossed in the opposite direction from Poland into Ukraine. They are typically Ukrainians working in Poland who have returned to take care of their families, or to find them and take them to the border.
But there have also been refugees who have decided to go back out of homesickness, or to protect their homes.
- Sharing the burden -
Mindful of the strain on Poland, the European Union wants to share the burden more effectively across the bloc.
Ylva Johansson, the European commissioner for home affairs, said Monday that the EU had to encourage war refugees in Poland to keep moving west.
It is "important to incentivise refugees to leave Poland and actually try to go also to other member states, because otherwise the situation would not be sustainable", she said.
On March 4, the EU activated a never-used directive giving temporary protection to Ukrainians, allowing them to live, work, study and have access to welfare in any of the bloc's 27 member states.
Some 800,000 people have applied for the status, while Ukrainians can stay three months without a visa in Europe's Schengen open-borders zone.
Besides Poland, more than 600,000 Ukrainian refugees have reached Romania -- many via Moldova -- nearly 365,000 crossed into Hungary, and 280,000 into Slovakia.
Russia itself is now hosting 350,000 Ukrainian refugees, while Belarus has taken in more than 10,000.
The European mass mobilisation of support for Ukrainian refugees contrasts sharply with the reception often afforded refugees from other continents, such as those from Afghanistan or Syria.
C.Meier--BTB