ZAGREB, 9 April 2022 - Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said in Krakow on Saturday that the city had responded in a good and organised way to the arrival of refugees from Ukraine fleeing the Russian invasion, who have increased the city's population by some 20%.
"Krakow has been faced with refugees not since yesterday but since 2015. At the time, Europe took in around one million migrants, including illegal migrants. Today there are 2.5 million refugees in Poland alone, and they have been promptly integrated," Grlić Radman told reporters after meeting with the mayor of Krakow, who, he said, "was also interested in our experience with refugees during the Homeland War."
Speaking of the refugees from Ukraine, he said they left their country fleeing the Russian aggression and that they had been given a friendly welcome.
The refugees have been enabled to continue with education and have been provided with adequate accommodation, Grlić Radman said.
Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski said the refugee crisis was putting huge pressure on the city administration, with the refugees now accounting for close to one quarter of the city's population.
Majchrowski explained how their reception and integration had been organised but stressed that the problem was that "women, children and the elderly have come here while men, who could work in Poland, have returned to Ukraine."
Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, four million people have fled the country while the total number of those displaced exceeds ten million, according to UNHCR.
More than 2.52 million Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Poland, according to Polish border services.
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