In September, the European Union (EU) saw the largest number of Ukrainian refugees in the last two years, according to data from the Eurostat statistical agency, LETA reports, citing DW.
In September, EU countries made 79,205 new decisions to grant temporary protection to people who left Ukraine due to Russian aggression.
This is a 49% increase compared to the previous month and the highest figure since August 2023.
Eurostat explains the rise in applications by Kyiv's decision to allow young men aged 18 to 22 to leave the country.
As a result, the share of adult men among Ukrainian refugees rose to 47% in September.
For the first time, they outnumbered adult women (31%). The share of minors was 22%.
At the end of September, 4.3 million people who left Ukraine had temporary protection status in EU countries.
Compared to the end of August, the number of Ukrainians with this status increased by 49,555 people, or 1.2%.
The largest number of people with temporary protection resides in Germany — over 1.2 million people (28.3% of the total in the EU). Poland comes second, with over a million people (23.5%), followed by the Czech Republic (almost 400,000 people, 9%).
Since August 28, Ukrainian men aged 18 to 22 have been allowed to leave the country freely. Prior to this, the martial law imposed in Ukraine after Russia's renewed invasion in February 2022 prohibited adult men under 60 from leaving the country, except in certain cases.
After the lifting of restrictions, the number of young men relocating to Germany in the following weeks increased tenfold compared to the previous period.
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