More than 1 million children have fled Ukraine in the less than two weeks since Russia first invaded the country, something UNICEF spokesman James Elder called 'a dark historical first.'
ZAHONY, HUNGARY -- After bombs started falling in her hometown of Kharkiv, Annamaria Maslovska left her friends, her toys and her life in Ukraine and set off on a days-long journey with her mother toward safety in the West.
That means that children represent at least half of the more than 2 million people who have fled the war, an exodus the U.N. refugee agency has called the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. There have even been cases of children having to make the journey alone.While very young children may not grasp that their lives have been upended, older ones are aware of their hardship and risk suffering the psychological trauma of war and seeking refuge, experts say.
But Natalia Mudrenko, the highest-ranking woman at Ukraine's U.N. Mission, has accused Russia of holding civilians, including women and children, "hostage" in some of Ukraine's embattled cities and assaulting them as they attempt to flee. Valeria Varenko, 9, traveled day and night to Hungary with her mother Julia and her little brother after bombings forced them to shelter in the basement of their apartment building in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
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