UN says Syria refugees top 3 million mark

The civil war in Syria has forced a record 3 million people out of the country as more than a million people fled in the past year, the UN refugee agency said Friday.  The tragic milestone means that about one of every eight Syrians has fled across the border, and 6.5 million others have been displaced within Syria since the conflict began in March 2011, the Geneva-based agency said. More than half of all those uprooted are children, it said. ‘The Syria crisis has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them,’ said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres. Syria had a prewar population of 23 million. The recent surge in fighting appears to be worsening the already desperate situation for Syrian refugees, the agency said, as the extremist Islamic State group expands its control of broad areas straddling the Syria-Iraq border and terrorizes rivals and civilians in both countries. According to the agency, many of the new arrivals in Jordan come from the northern province of Aleppo and the northeastern region of Raqqa, a stronghold of the group. An independent UN commission says the group is systematically carrying out widespread bombings, beheadings and mass killings that amount to crimes against humanity in both areas, according to AP.