UN expecting 8.3m refugees from Ukraine

UNHCR had previously planned for some four million refugees in the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 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.