U.N. expecting 8.3 million refugees from Ukraine this year

FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian refugees from Mariupol area walk after arriving in a small convoy that crossed through a territory held by Russian forces, after the opening of a humanitarian corridor, at a registration center for internally displaced people, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine April 21, 2022. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) is expecting some 8.3 million people to flee Ukraine this year, revising up its previous projection, a spokesperson said on Tuesday.

More than 12.7 million people have fled their homes in the past two months, including 7.7 million people displaced internally and more than 5 million who have fled over borders, UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told a U.N. news briefing.

UNHCR had previously planned for some 4 million refugees in the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 but this was surpassed last month.

"The scale of the crisis, definitely the rapidity of people fleeing, we have not seen in recent times," Mantoo told the briefing. Syria remains the biggest current refugee crisis in the world, with 6.8 million people having fled, she added.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Catherine Evans)