How the war in Ukraine compares to other refugee crises

The conflict in Ukraine has created the largest flow of refugees in a single year since at least the end of the cold war. In just five weeks more than 4m people have sought refuge elsewhere and millions more have been displaced within Ukraine. The wave of refugees is placing immense strain on neighbouring countries. The population of Warsaw, Poland’s capital, has grown by almost a fifth since the start of the war.

Finding a true measure of comparison with other refugee crises can be tricky. Figures are often patchy and understate the true number of those displaced. Researchers usually rely on the change in the number of refugees in a given year from one country residing in another, rather than the outflow of migrants from the point of origin. But a team of researchers at the University of California, Merced, led by Andrew Shaver, have used previously unpublished data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on annual refugee flows from country to country. The new numbers, shared with The Economist, enable accurate comparisons to be made between past crises and the strife in Ukraine.

These refined comparisons suggest that the rate at which people are leaving Ukraine has been far higher than anywhere in the world since 1990, the first year for which such data are reliably available. More people have left the country than the 1.4m who fled Iraq in 1991, during the first Gulf war. Around 2.2m people left Syria in 2013. And in 2018, as Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in rigged elections in Venezuela, nearly 2m people fled that country.

Several factors have made it easier for refugees to flee Ukraine than other countries, which could partly explain the record numbers. Ukraine’s railways have kept running, allowing Ukrainians both to travel within the country and to leave it. Afghanistan, by contrast, has no passenger rail service. The West is also more willing to welcome refugees from Ukraine than people fleeing other wars. Even if the fighting ends soon, the unprecedented exodus may reshape Europe for years to come. ■

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