Number of Syrian refugees tops four million mark: UN

More than four million Syrians have fled the civil war ravaging their country to become refugees in the surrounding region -- a million of them in the past 10 months alone, the United Nations said on July 9.

"This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation," UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
 
"It is a population that needs the support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into poverty," he warned.
 
The UN refugee agency said a surge in new refugee arrivals in Turkey had pushed the total number of Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries to over 4,013,000 people.
 
Just over 10 months ago, at the end of August 2014, the number of registered Syrian refugees stood at three million, UNHCR said, adding that if Syrians continue fleeing their country at the same pace it expects the number to balloon to 4.27 million by the end of the year.
 
The current number of refugees is already by far the highest handled by UNHCR for a single conflict in nearly a quarter century, since the agency was assisting some 4.6 million Afghan refugees in 1992, a spokeswoman told AFP.
 
More than 230,000 people have been killed in Syria since anti-government protests erupted in March 2011, precipitating a civil war pitting pro-regime forces, rebels and jihadist groups against each other.
   
In addition to the millions who have fled Syria, 7.6 million have been displaced inside the war-torn country, "many of them in difficult circumstances and in locations that are difficult to reach," UNHCR said.
   
Syrians are so desperate to escape the nightmare conditions in their country that they made up a third of the 137,000 people who flooded...