Nearly 4.2 million people who fled Ukraine because of Russia’s war under temporary protection in EU in August
As of August 31 2024, nearly 4.2 million non-EU citizens, who fled Ukraine as a consequence of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, had temporary protection status in the European Union, EU statistics agency Eurostat said on October 10.
The EU countries hosting the highest number of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine were Germany (1 122 330 people; 27 per cent of the EU total), Poland (975 190; 23.4 per cent) and Czechia (376 885; 9.1 per cent).
Compared with the end of July 2024, the largest absolute increases in the number of beneficiaries were observed in Germany (+11 730; +1.1 per cent), Czechia (+7 275; +2.0 per cent) and Romania (+3 050; +1.8 per cent).
The number of beneficiaries decreased in Poland (-1 015; -0,1 per cent), France (-680; -1.1 per cent) and Luxembourg (-10; -0.3 per cent).
In Bulgaria, the number of beneficiaries was 62 135 as of the end of August, according to Eurostat. As of October 10, Bulgaria’s official website on Ukrainians with temporary protection resident in the country showed a figure of 66 802.
Eurostat said that compared with the population of each EU country, the highest ratio of temporary protection beneficiaries per thousand people at the end of August 2024 were observed in Czechia (34.6), Lithuania (27.6) and Poland (26.6), whereas the corresponding figure at the EU level was 9.3 per thousand people.
In Bulgaria, the ratio was 9.7 per thousand people, slightly above the EU average.
On 31 August 2024, Ukrainian citizens represented over 98.3 per cent of the beneficiaries of temporary protection. Adult women made up almost half (45.1 per cent) of the temporary protection beneficiaries in the EU. Children accounted for almost one-third (32.3 per cent), while adult men comprised more than a fifth (22.6 per cent) of the total.
Data presented in this article refer to the attribution of temporary protection status based on the Council Implementing Decision 2022/382 of March 4 2022, establishing the existence of a mass influx of displaced persons from Ukraine due to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, and introducing temporary protection.
On June 25 2024, the European Council adopted the decision to extend the temporary protection for these people from March 4 2025 to March 4 2026.
(Archive photo, from March 2022, of Ukrainian refugees entering Poland: UNHCR/ Chris Melzer)
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