More than 2m have fled Syria – UN

More than two million Syrians are now refugees, with the total going up by a million in six months, the United Nations High Commission for Refugee says.
According to UNHCR, at least 700,000 have fled to Lebanon, and more Syrians are now displaced than any other nationality.
France and the United States are continuing to push for military action over alleged chemical weapons use by Syrian forces.
There are suggestions that President Barack Obama may be planning much wider action than the limited strikes that have been publicly proposed, BBC reports.
The reports emerged as senior U.S politicians were set to speak before a congressional committee, 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 of 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.
There is now thought to be one Syrian refugee in Lebanon to roughly every six Lebanese. Jordan and Turkey have taken in the second and third highest numbers respectively.