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Nearly 230,000 Syrian refugees in neighboring countries: UN

01 September 2012 04:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Friday that the number of registered Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey has reached nearly 230,000, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"In Turkey, the (UN) Agency said that two more refugee camps -- which together can host 23,000 refugees -- have been opened in the last week to accommodate new arrivals," UN spokesman Farhan Haq said at a daily news briefing here. "Another three sites which can host 10,000 refugees each are set to open next month."

Some 1,400 Syrians have been arriving every day at the Za’tari camp in Jordan in the past week, bringing the camp’s population to more than 23,000, Haq said. "The Agency and its partners are working to expand the site to receive more arrivals and improve conditions."

The Agency said that the number of Syrians fleeing to Kurdistan in Iraq has risen in the last two weeks, the spokesman said, adding that Agency staff visited eight shelters in Damascus on Thursday and confirmed that sanitation, bedding, water and food are urgently needed.

The prolonged conflict in Syria worsened the humanitarian situation in the country and prompted more and more Syrian people to flee into neighboring countries for safety and security.