BERLIN (Reuters) – The international Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is setting up a logistics hub in Budapest to bring aid supplies to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, and is making preparations for an influx of refugees, the German Red Cross said on Friday.
“We are preparing a really big operation,” Christof Johnen, head of international cooperation at the German Red Cross, told Reuters in an interview, adding that the confusing dynamics of the conflict made it extremely difficult to plan a response.
“We have reports that civilian facilities have also been affected by the fighting. People are insecure, people try to hide. In formal shelters, but of course also in informal ones, in basements and so on,” Johnen said.
Supplies for trauma treatment are already being sent to Ukraine, but the Red Cross cannot deliver water, food or hygiene items at scale at the moment as the situation is still too unclear and dangerous, he said.
Johnen said the establishment of reception camps for refugees was under discussion, but that there was still no reliable indication of how many refugees might come.
Germany has offered support to Poland and other countries in eastern Europe facing a possible influx of refugees, and said on Friday that the distribution would be coordinated.
U.N. aid agencies said Russia’s invasion could drive up to 5 million people to flee abroad.
At least 100,000 people are uprooted in Ukraine after fleeing their homes, while several thousand have already crossed into neighbouring countries including Moldova, Romania and Poland, U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.
(Reporting by Alexander Ratz; Writing by Zuzanna Szymanska; Editing by Miranda Murray and Kevin Liffey)
