Updated

Poland is offering evacuation and other forms of care to people of Polish descent who are living amid the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Pawlik led a mission to the Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Kharkov and Zaporizhiya to ask these people what forms of aid they and their families need.

On Monday, when the mission returned to Warsaw, ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski declined to say how many people could be evacuated or when. However, the government recently estimated that could eventually involve about 100 people.

Wojciechowski said that some Ukrainians of Polish descent already are receiving aid from Poland.

In Ukraine, which borders Poland, more than 4,700 people have been killed in a war that Ukrainian troops are fighting against pro-Russian separatists in the east.