GENEVA

The United Nations said Tuesday that the number of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine has now reached 3 million.

“We have now reached the 3 million refugees and among them 157,000 third-country nationals,” said International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Paul Dillon at a UN press conference.

At the same time, UNICEF said, 73,000 Ukrainian children have become refugees every day over the last 20 days.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder said: “Since Feb. 24, scores of children have been killed in Ukraine. Many more have been injured, and more than 1.5 million children have fled the country.

“Putting this last statistic another way, on average, every day in Ukraine from the start of the war, more than 75,000 children have become refugees every day. This last number is particularly shocking. Every single minute, 55 children have fled their country.”

Elder said that meant that a Ukrainian child has become a refugee almost every single second since the start of the war on Feb. 24.

The UN refugee agency said that almost 1.8 million of those refugees have gone to Poland, more than 453,000 to Romania, over 337,000 to Moldova, more than 263,000 to Hungary, and 213,000 to Slovakia.

Russia has received around 143,000 refugees.