Refugees from Ukraine pushed the number of residents in Lithuania up by 54,000 last year, Lithuania's State Data Agency reports on Monday.
Lithuania had some 2,860,000 permanent residents on January 1, which increased by around 72,400, mostly due to the refugee influx. Meanwhile, natural population change was negative – there were 18,400 more deaths than births.
Compared to 2021, Lithuania recorded fewer deaths and births in 2022, as 21,900 babies were born, down by 1,400 (6 percent) from 2021, and 40,300 people died, down by 7,400 (15.5 percent).
Some 95,400 people immigrated to Lithuania, up by 50,500, or 2.1 times more than in 2021, the agency said.
Last year, 62,000 people (65 percent of all immigrants) came to Lithuania from Ukraine, 9,900 (10.4 percent) came from Belarus, 5,800 (6.1 percent) arrived from the United Kingdom and 3,200 (3.3 percent) came from Russia.
Ukrainians accounted for 85 percent of the 81,000 people arriving in the country without Lithuanian citizenship. Almost every tenth immigrant was a citizen of Belarus (9,800), and another 2,800 (3.5 percent) were Russian citizens.
Ukraine was also the most frequent destination for outgoing permanent residents as 4,700 emigrated to this country last year.
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