New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS) Thousands of Ukrainians are already on the move and leaving the country, with tens of thousands more preparing to flee, after the Russian attack ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, The Guardian reported.
Videos and photos on social media show lines of cars moving out of cities and heading west, as well as an increase of people on foot near the southern and western borders, the report said.
The United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday that the situation was quickly deteriorating after Russia's invasion. It appealed to neighbouring countries to keep their borders open to people seeking a safe haven.
"We have already seen reports of casualties and people starting to flee their homes to seek safety," said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, The Guardian reported.
At the Luzhanka border crossing with Hungary in western Ukraine, hundreds of cars waited in a queue snaking more than 2 kilometres back from the border on Thursday afternoon. People said they had been waiting over six hours in line to cross.
Others had come from other parts of Ukraine and planned to drive on to western Europe. "The people who have money are leaving," said one of the customs officials at the post. He said over 1,500 people had left through the crossing by 4 p.m. on Thursday, as opposed to just a few hundred on a normal day.
He had been injured in a shootout between a passenger in his car and the teenager who was also injured in the exchange of fire and remained hospitalised, the station said.
The searing parallels that bookend the two decades — shaken commanders-in-chief promising retribution for a devastating suicide attack; triumphant Taliban militants in Afghanistan and a military transport fleeing Kabul — might suggest little has changed. Of course, since Sept. 11, virtually everything has.
Mu, also known as B.1.621, was first identified from Colombia in January this year. Infections from Mu have since been recorded in South America and Europe. Based on the latest round of assessments, B.1.621 was classified as a VOI on 30 August 2021 and given the WHO label "Mu".
The militant group's metamorphosis from rag-tag guerrilla force to highly professional, impressively equipped army has been at the expense of Western taxpayers, the report said.
"Russia should be concerned about the rise of the Taliban. The country will become a terrorist hub that will endanger Central Asia and Russia itself," Fahim Dashty told The Moscow Times by phone from the Panjshir Valley, where his resistance group has gathered as the country's last holdout against the Taliban.
On Thursday evening, a suicide bombing rocked a gate of the airport where a crashing crowd was waiting for evacuation flights, and later another explosion hit the nearby Baron Camp, a former coalition base.
