03/09/2013 12:02
UN refugee agency says more than 2m have fled Syria
More than two million Syrians are now refugees, with the total going up by half a million in the past three months, the UN refugee agency has said, according to BBC.
More than 700,000 have fled to Lebanon, and more Syrians are now displaced than any other nationality, the UNHCR says.
France and the US are continuing to push for military action over alleged chemical weapons use by Syrian forces.
Senior US politicians are set to speak before a congressional committee later to rally support for intervention.
The UNHCR said in a statement on Tuesday: "Syria is haemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs."
Around half of those forced to leave are children, UN agencies estimate, with about three-quarters of them under 11.
Just 118,000 refugee children have been able to continue in some sort of education, and only one-fifth have received some sort counselling, with agencies warning of a "lost generation" of child refugees ill-equipped to help rebuild Syria in the future.
Lebanon has received the highest number of refugees, even though it is the smallest of Syria's neighbours and one of the least able to cope.
One of biggest single waves of refugees in the conflict occurred in mid-August, when thousands of refugees from north-eastern Syria poured over the border into Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iraq has the fourth largest population of Syrian refugees, with over 170,000 in the country.