UNHCR: Number of Syrian refugees grow 10%
Iran Press TV
Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:8PM GMT
The UN refugee agency says the number of Syrian refugees has soared 10 percent in the past week alone.
Reem Alsalem of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday that more than 121,000 refugees have been registered since last week.
The agency’s commissioner, Antonio Guterres, noted that the daily average number of Syrians fleeing their country jumped to 8,000 in February from 3,000 in December 2012.
“This represents a staggering escalation,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying.
Some four million Syrians have been forced from their homes, according to the UNHCR that warned that the number of Syrians fleeing to neighboring countries is growing beyond initial estimates.
Last week, the UN announced that one million Syrian refugees had been registered in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and North Africa.
Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande called on European leaders to start officially arming Syria militants by removing bans on flow of weapons into the violence-wracked country.
“We want Europeans to lift the arms embargo.... We are ready to support the rebellion, so we are ready to go this far. We must take our responsibilities," Hollande said on Thursday in reference to the current European Union sanctions on sending arms to Syria.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government has said that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and that a very large number of the militants operating in the country are foreign nationals.
Several international human rights organizations have accused foreign-sponsored militants of committing war crimes.
KA/HN
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