Moldova says every 8th child in the country is now a refugee

Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest states, has taken in over 100,000 refugees since the war in Ukraine started, according to media reports.

The country’s prime minister says every eighth child in the country is now a refugee as it battles to house people fleeing the war waged by Russia.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the Home Office has been heavily criticised for its chaotic response to the Ukraine refugee crisis.

Priti Patel told MPs that more than 14,000 people have applied to come to the UK via the Ukraine family scheme visa.

So far only 300 have been approved, with nearly 600 refugees stuck in Calais after being turned away for lack of paperwork.

Romania, Poland and Hungary

Elsewhere, Romania, which neighbours both Moldova and Ukraine, said that as of Sunday, 227,000 Ukrainians had entered the country.

But Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said “no Ukrainian will be denied entry into Romania”, whilst warning that Bucharest believes the situation “will continue for a long time and the complications will worsen”.

“We believe that this humanitarian catastrophe will spread, that a lot of help will be needed here, but also in Ukraine,” Iohannis added.

Meanwhile, Poland has received an extraordinary number of Ukrainian refugees: over one million, prompting The Spectator to call it a “humanitarian superpower”.

Even Hungary has received over 180,000 Ukrainian refugees, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

‘No country in Europe has done more since 2015’ – Boris Johnson

Despite the figures, prime minister Boris Johnson said “no country in Europe has done more to settle vulnerable people, since 2015, than the UK”.

He told Sky News: “I’m not sure that these numbers are right, but we’re processing thousands as I speak to you.

“Clearly this crisis is evolving the whole time and I’ve said before that the UK will be as generous as we can possibly be and we intend to do that.

“We have two very, very generous routes already, the Family Reunion route, which is uncapped, which could potentially see hundreds of thousands of people coming to this country, plus the Humanitarian route. Under that scheme, people can sponsor people coming from Ukraine.”

“We’re surging officials into the border countries to help people to come, so to Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, also to France.”

Upon being asked to say how many Ukrainian refugees have been approved to come to the UK after claiming he is “not sure” 50 is the correct number, Johnson added: “I can’t give you the number, but we’re processing thousands right now, we will continue to make sure that we have a very, very generous approach”.

WATCH and Reactions:

One Twitter user reacted: “The war started about 10 days ago. What’s 2015 got to do with it? Interviewer could do better here I think.”

“We’ve resettled loads. By selling armaments to and being involved in wars around the world”, another said, adding: “What…. He never said we resettled them here…”

Andra Maciuca

Andra is a multilingual, award-winning NQJ senior journalist and the UK’s first Romanian representing co-nationals in Britain and reporting on EU citizens for national news. She is interested in UK, EU and Eastern European affairs, EU citizens in the UK, British citizens in the EU, environmental reporting, ethical consumerism and corporate social responsibility. She has contributed articles to VICE, Ethical Consumer and The New European and likes writing poetry, singing, songwriting and playing instruments. She studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield and has a Masters in International Business and Management from the University of Manchester. Follow her on: