The war in Ukraine has created a humanitarian crisis, and a local expert says we've only begun to realize where this is all going.
Shailja Sharma is a professor of International Studies at DePaul University. She told WBBM this weekend that she estimates that "about four million Ukrainians are going to flee this war."
"You're going to see people who have fled to Europe...are eventually going to make their way to where their relatives and friends are, and because both New York and Chicago have huge Ukrainian populations, I think eventually we will see them apply for refugee status and come to the United States," said Sharma.
And Professor Sharma says this war and humanitarian crisis is a bit different because we're seeing it unfold as it happens.
"There's an immediacy that we're seeing due to technology," said Sharma. "But I think there is another part in which people are saying, 'a week ago this was a country which was relatively sort of middle class, very high level of education, how could it just sort of disintegrate in the period of a week?' It's almost like a compressed time frame. "
And Professor Sharma says Ukraine is a reminder that there are humanitarian crises all over the world.
"Almost 60 people are displaced from their homes currently, of that, about 60 percent are internally displaced so they are still within their own country but they don't have homes or they move from one home to another because of floods or droughts or civil war," she said. "And then the rest of them are people who are outside the borders of their country and they are looking to find a home somewhere and be accepted somewhere. So the numbers are just mind-boggling right now."
As for Ukraine, "there's so much up in the air, it's very hard to think about where this is going to lead," Professor Sharma said.
