Number of refugees fleeing Syria tops 2m

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Syrian refugees sit in front of a closed shop in Reyhanli, Turkey

Syria’s refugee crisis is escalating, with the number of people having fled its borders doubling to 2m in the past six months, the UN has warned.

The UNHCR, the body’s refugee agency, said on Tuesday that the refugee total a year ago stood at 230,670. Today’s 2m total includes all those registered as refugees and awaiting registration.

Syrian refugees

“The war is now well into its third year and Syria is haemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs,” the agency said in a statement.

António Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said Syria had become “a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history”.

“The only solace is the humanity shown by the neighbouring countries in welcoming and saving the lives of so many refugees,” he added.

Tiny, volatile Lebanon has received the biggest number of refugees, both in per capita and absolute terms. UNHCR puts it at 720,000, but some estimates say as many as a million refugees have entered this country of 4m, and the government is under pressure to control the increase.

Many in Lebanon see the influx of Palestinian refugees after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 as one of the triggers for the country’s 15-year civil war, and, wary of the example, the Lebanese government has so far not allowed the creation of refugee camps.

This means Syrian refugees are dispersed among the population, often in the poorest areas, where locals complain they drive up the cost of housing. Thousands are living in temporary accommodation, in tents and on construction sites.

With the influx showing no sign of stopping, relations with host communities are becoming strained. There are reports of Syrian refugees being put under curfew in some towns in the mountains. In Beirut, streets once bustling with well-heeled shoppers are now crowded with destitute Syrians begging for money.

Jordan has meanwhile absorbed more than half a million Syrian refugees and hosts a camp, Zaatari, which has grown so large it is now the country’s fourth-largest city. The government says the border remains open, but there are concerns that the numbers now managing to enter are artificially low, with reports that refugees have been stranded on the Syrian side of the border.

In Turkey, officials say that with close to 500,000 refugees in special camps and scattered throughout the country, they simply cannot absorb more people. Many refugees are forced to live on the Syrian side of the border in makeshift camps, although some make it over the border in sporadic bursts. Nearly 8,000 have crossed in the past week, according to Turkish media.

Egypt has received 110,000 refugees, and Iraq 168,000, according to the UN.

More than half of those fleeing Syria are aged 17 or under, of whom only about 10 per cent are still receiving some form of education.

The UN estimates that an additional 4.25m Syrians have been displaced within the country; the combined figure is now greater than for any other country.

Humanitarian agencies had received only about 47 per cent of the funds they were seeking, the UN said.

Kristalina Georgieva, the EU’s top humanitarian aid official, on Tuesday said that “with violence becoming ever more ferocious, brutal and inhumane, the tide of refugees is bound to continue to rise”.

“Increasingly the civilian population is at the eye of the target,” she said. “Once again, I call for the fighting to cease and for a political solution to be found urgently.”

Additional reporting by Peter Spiegel in Brussels