refugee flow

With Poland seeking European financial assistance to deal with the Ukrainian refugee flow, the EU’s executive arm moved in June to unfreeze some $38 billion that had been earmarked for Poland’s domestic COVID-19 recovery programs but was blocked for more than a year by Brussels over concerns that the Warsaw government will improperly restrict the independence of the country’s judiciary.

“We had to deal very quickly with a massive refugee flow,” Gavrilita said, adding that recent polling revealed a significant majority of Moldovans were willing to take in even more displaced people.

Moldova has struggled to cope with the refugee flow from its neighbour, seeing some 450,000 refugees cross into the country with some 95,000 staying, of which half are children.

It is struggling to cope with the refugee flow from its neighbour, but incidents involving pro-Russian separatists in recent weeks in the Transdniestria breakaway region have raised international alarm that Russia’s war in Ukraine could spread over the frontier.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked Europe’s biggest refugee flow since World War II, with millions of people driven from bombed-out homes and devastated cities.