EU agrees to take Ukrainian refugees for 3 years

The EU has agreed, with unanimous decision among all member states to accept Ukrainian refugees up to three years without asking them to initially apply for asylum, the German interior minister said.

The EU has warned that Europe is facing a major humanitarian crisis, and the number of internally displaced people from Russia's invasion could be higher than seven million.

“We are witnesses to what could become the biggest humanitarian crisis on our European continent in many years”, the commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management said at a Janez Lenzic press conference.

“Exactly, the expected number of displaced Ukrainians is over seven million people”, he said, citing UN estimates.

He said some 18 million Ukrainians are expected to be affected by the humanitarian conflict and about four million to leave the country.

“Although these are very close assessments, the figures are huge and we have to prepare for this kind of emergency, which has a historical dimension”, he added.

The UN refugee agency says the number of people fleeing Ukraine has now reached 368,000, with many in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Moldova and Slovakia.