Over 7.1m people internally displaced in Ukraine, UN says

The number of internally displaced people in Ukraine has risen to over 7.1 million, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Earlier, the Geneva-based UN agency had put the number of people forced to leave their home but who remain within the war-torn country’s borders at around 6.5 million.

“People continue to flee their homes because of war, and the humanitarian needs on the ground continue to soar,” said IOM Director General António Vitorino.

According to surveys conducted by the IOM, more than a third of displaced households were without income in March.

More than half of these households had children and elderly people living in them, chronically ill patients lived in 30 per cent of the households.

The number of people who had fled Ukraine to other countries since the beginning of the Russian invasion stands at 4.2 million, according to the latest data from the UN Refugee Agency.