More than 4 million refugees have now fled Syria, UN says

In addition, there are 7.6 million Syrians who have fled from their homes but have stayed within their country.

The UNHCR says it expect the figure of refugees in neighbouring countries to reach around 4.27m by the end of this year. “It is a population that needs the support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into poverty”.

In the past 10 months more than 1 million people have been forced to become refugees.

Over four million refugees from Syria have now passed into neighbouring countries. He said the lack of money is putting huge pressure on the refugees and local communities hosting them.

The exodus from Syria is the highest recorded since 1992 when the number of refugees from Afghanistan hit a staggering 4.6 million.

The crisis in Syria, which started with anti-government protests in 2011, has evolved into a complex war that involves the government’s army and militias, opposition rebels, Kurdish forces, as well as extremist groups such as Islamic State.

Edwards said many refugees see no prospect of returning home in the near future and this is driving larger numbers toward Europe and farther afield. For 2015 as a whole UNHCR and partners appealed for US$5.5 billion. The more than 1.8 million Syrians in Turkey have made it the biggest host of refugees in the world, an expensive undertaking that the country is bearing mostly out of its own treasury.

“Not included, are more than 270,000 asylum applications by Syrians in Europe, and thousands of others resettled from the region elsewhere”, UNHCR said. However, as of late June, only around a quarter of this has been received.

“This means refugees face tough new cuts in food aid, and struggle to afford life-saving health services or send their children to school”, it cautioned.

The Syrian conflict has entered in its fifth year but with little hope in sight of a possible solution and the number of people fleeing the war zone is rising.

UNHCR said life for exiled Syrians was becoming increasingly hard.

“We are seeing a growing trend in what we call negative coping – that is, child labor, begging, child marriages and worse”.