Number of Syrian refugees passes 2 million mark - UN
More than two million Syrians have now fled their war-ravaged country, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday, lamenting the nearly 10-fold increase from a year ago. "Syria is haemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs," the UNHCR said in a statement, pointing out that on September 3, 2012, it had registered just 230,671 Syrian refugees. In addition to the two million Syrians living as refugees, some 4.25 million people have been displaced within the devastated country since the conflict began in March 2011, according to UN figures. A staggering 6.2 million Syrians have thus been torn from their homes - a number without parallel in any other country and representing nearly a third of Syria's pre-war population of 20.8 million.