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U.N. Says 5,000 People a Day Are Now Fleeing War in Syria U.N. Says 5,000 Syrians a Day Are Now Fleeing War
(about 9 hours later)
GENEVA — Syria’s conflict is now driving 5,000 people to seek safety in neighboring countries every day, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday, reporting a surge in their numbers in January. GENEVA — Syria’s conflict is now driving 5,000 people out of the country each day in an increasingly desperate scramble for safety, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday as it reported a surge in their numbers to nearly 800,000.
“This is a full-on crisis,” Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the agency, told journalists in Geneva, reporting a 25 percent increase in the number of Syrian refugees registered in the region in January. “This is a full-on crisis,” Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the agency, told journalists in Geneva. He said the number of registered Syrian refugees in neighboring countries had risen about 25 percent last month alone.
The surge brought the numbers this week to 787,000, an increase of more than 50 percent since mid-December, Mr. Edwards said. The numbers now include 260,943 in Lebanon, the first country to exceed a quarter of a million Syrian refugees; 242,649 in Jordan; 177,180 in Turkey; and 84,852 in Iraq. Another United Nations agency, Unicef, said in a new assessment that Syrian civilians in conflict zones had only one-third the water supplies of pre-crisis levels, with Aleppo, rural Damascus, Deir al-Zour, Homs, Idlib and Raqqa the most severely afflicted.
The refugee agency reported in late January that it was registering up to 1,800 refugees a day in Lebanon and was opening new registration centers to try to cope with the influx. But its latest figures show that the daily flow of Syrians to Lebanon is now over 2,500 a day, and the heavy fighting in and around Damascus, the Syrian capital, which is only around 15 miles from the Lebanese border, could send the numbers higher. This week, Unicef began trucking water purification chemicals into Syria, enough for 10 million people, nearly half the population, as the World Health Organization reported outbreaks of hepatitis A and other diseases spread by poor hygiene and limited access to clean water. The French medical aid group Doctors Without Borders, which operates three field hospitals in northern Syria, said this week that leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease, was endemic but going untreated in areas around Aleppo.
A report released on Thursday by the French medical relief agency Doctors Without Borders warned that major gaps had arisen in assistance for refugees in Lebanon and that their profound humanitarian needs were not being met. “We still need to do much more to reach all those who need help in order to avoid the risk of waterborne diseases spreading,” Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, a Unicef representative in Damascus, said in a statement.
The report, drawing on a survey in December, found problematic delays in registration, which opens up access to assistance. The report said that up to half of the refugees interviewed were living in shelters that provided little protection against weather and that many were unable to access or afford medical care for chronic diseases. “The general conditions of health for refugees in Lebanon are below the level we observe elsewhere” in the region, Bruno Jochum, the group’s general director, told reporters in Geneva on Thursday. The latest crisis statistics from the United Nations came as Damascus was gripped in the third consecutive day of clashes between insurgents and loyalists to President Bashar al-Assad. Activist groups have described it as the worst violence there in months, but there was no indication that rebel fighters were any closer to gaining control of the capital, which is heavily defended.
Fears are also mounting over the increased risks of disease inside Syria, particularly among the more than two million people estimated to have been displaced by fighting, as a result of a disruption in Syria’s water supply. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group based in Britain with a network of contacts in Syria, reported that at least 50 civilian workers from a defense factory were killed in a bus bombing on Wednesday near the central city of Hama — more than double the toll the group had said earlier. It attributed the delay in reporting the updated number to an inability to get information from the area, which is controlled by the government.
The United Nations children’s agency, Unicef, said on Friday that a survey of six Syrian areas, including rural Damascus, Homs and Aleppo, found that people in conflict areas were receiving about one-third of the water they were getting before the crisis, and that the lack of water-treatment chemicals increased the risk that supplies had been contaminated. Syria’s state-run news media reported what it described as a terrorist bombing near Hama but did not specify casualties. It is unclear who was responsible for the blast.
The World Health Organization last week drew attention to rising cases of hepatitis A and other waterborne diseases. Doctors Without Borders, which operates three field hospitals in northern Syria, said this week that leishmaniasis, a parasitic skin disease, was endemic but going untreated in areas around Aleppo. Mr. Edwards, in Geneva, said that as of this week, 787,000 Syrians had registered or were waiting to register as refugees in neighboring countries. The total includes 260,943 in Lebanon, the first country to exceed a quarter-million Syrian refugees; 242,649 in Jordan; 177,180 in Turkey; and 84,852 in Iraq. At least 15,000 have sought refuge in Egypt.
Syrians reaching the Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan reported widespread cases of diarrhea among children as well as scabies and skin lice, a Unicef spokeswoman, Marixie Mercado, told reporters in Geneva on Friday. The United Nations refugee agency reported in late January that it was registering up to 1,800 refugees a day in Lebanon and was opening new registration centers to cope with the influx. But its latest figures show that the flow of Syrians to Lebanon now exceeds 2,500 a day, and the heavy fighting in and around Damascus, which is only about 15 miles from the Lebanese border, could send the numbers higher.
Unicef this month started an operation to bring in a thousand metric tons of sodium hypochlorite, which it said would be sufficient to provide safe water for 10 million people for three months. Around 160 tons of the chemical arrived this week bound for Homs, Aleppo, Idlib and Hama, she said. Lebanon’s mix of religious sects, with their divided loyalties on the Syrian conflict, in some ways makes it the least hospitable destination for the refugees. The Lebanese government has not built camps for the refugees, who have scrambled to find shelter and set off resentment among some Lebanese. A report released on Thursday by Doctors Without Borders warned that major gaps had arisen in assistance for refugees in Lebanon and that their basic humanitarian needs were not being met.
The leader of the main Syrian opposition group, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, who made a surprise offer last week to open a dialogue with Mr. Assad’s government, has given the Syrian president until Sunday to respond. But there is no indication that Mr. Assad will accept the offer from Sheik Khatib, who is viewed by some of his own colleagues as naïve for even having proposed it.
“He did the Syrian regime a favor at this stage because his attitude showed the opposition as standing in a weak position,” Bassam Aldada, political adviser to the Free Syrian Army, the main armed wing of the opposition, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “Simply it was a free and unexpected dose of hope given to the regime.”

Nick Cumming-Bruce reported from Geneva, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Karam Shoumali from Antakya, Turkey.