Children make up half of the 3.8 million refugees from Ukraine that have arrived in the European Union since the Russian invasion, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson says.
“The numbers of arrivals is going down,” Johansson said Monday of Ukrainians arriving in the EU. “At the peak, we had 200,000 arrivals per day now it’s down to 40,000 per day,” she said.
Johansson, who was speaking after a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels, added that 800,000 of the 3.8 million arrivals have already applied for temporary protection in the EU.
The official also announced that the EU interior ministers had agreed on an EU-wide platform for registering refugees arriving and applying for temporary protection in the bloc, with “EU-level” coordination for hubs of transport and information.
The EU commissioner noted that common guidance for the reception and support of children, including unaccompanied minors, as well as an anti-trafficking plan had been approved by the EU ministers.
The lack of a uniform approach to managing the influx of refugees during and since the 2015 migration crisis has been a point of contention in the bloc.
Warning for the need of further contingency planning for refugees, she said, “we have to be prepared for many more millions that might need to flee from Ukraine,” CNN reports.
“We don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” the commissioner added.
