Ukrainian refugees start arriving in Italy

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 28 - The first Ukrainian refugees have started arriving in Italy, mostly women, children and the elderly, after Russia invaded their homeland last week.
    So far refugee arrivals have been registered in Trentino, Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Friuli Venezia Giulia.
    On Sunday a bus with 50 people, all women and children except for two men, including the driver, arrived in Trieste.
    They were set to stay with friends, relatives and acquaintances in Italy, mostly in the north, in cities including Milan, Brescia and Vicenza, although some were heading to Rome.
    Another bus arrived in Piacenza with around 40 women on board along with their children, including a nine-month-old baby.
    On Saturday and Sunday several families arrived in the province of Trentino, near the Austrian border.
    Venice Prefect Vittorio Zappalorto said several hundred Ukrainian refugees had arrived in Veneto.
    The cities of Bologna and Florence have called meetings of officials on how to organize the reception of the Ukraine refugees.
    Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese has said Italy is ready to do its bit.
    "Solidarity has always been a fixed point of our European agenda for me and there is all the more reason to give total solidarity to a people that is suffering," she said in the fringes of a European Interior Affairs Council in Brussels on Sunday (ANSA).