UN: Number of Syrian Refugees Exceeds Four Million

On Thursday, July 9, the United Nations announced that over four million Syrian citizens have fled the country's civil war. One million of these individuals have left the country in just the past ten months. According to a report by AFP citing the UN Refugee Agency, if this trend continues, the number of Syrian refugees will reach four million and 270 thousand by the end of this calendar year. This is in contrast to ten months ago, at the end of August 2014, when the registered number of Syrian refugees was only three million. Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN Refugee Agency, described the four million Syrian refugees as 'the largest population of refugees fleeing from a war.' AFP reports that the UN has not faced such a large population of refugees from a single country in the past 25 years. The last time the UN Refugee Agency assisted such a large group was in 1992 for 4.6 million Afghan refugees fleeing their country's civil war. Meanwhile, since the beginning of protests against Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria and the subsequent outbreak of civil war, over 230 thousand people have also lost their lives. On the same day, at least 19 civilians, including five children, died due to barrel bomb explosions from the Assad regime and rocket fire from rebels in Aleppo. The four million figure announced by the UN on Thursday is separate from the more than seven and a half million Syrian citizens who have been forced to leave their homes within the country. Of these four million, nearly two million have sought refuge in Turkey, and 1.17 million Syrian refugees have fled to the neighboring country of Lebanon. In contrast, only about 270 thousand Syrians have sought refuge in Europe, half of whom reached Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, which has claimed many lives over the past year. In this context, Syrians represent the second-largest refugee population in the world after Palestinians.