Factbox: U.N. says at least 30,000 refugees fled Syria

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations estimates at least 30,000 refugees have fled the fighting in Syria since the start of the conflict a year ago, while hundreds of thousands are thought to be displaced within Syria, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.

The number of refugees was up 5,000 from figures given by UNHCR on March 9, though newly appointed regional coordinator Panos Moumtzis said the increase represented more accurate data rather than a sudden flow of refugees across the border.

INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE

UNHCR does not have accurate data on the number of internally displaced people in Syria, but Moumtzis said the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society estimated the number at 200,000, which was the figure being used by U.N. agencies.

"There are some indications it is much larger than that," he told a regular U.N. news briefing.

TURKEY

Some 13,000 Syrians are in seven camps set up in Turkey's southern province of Hatay. UNHCR says 23,000 people have received protection there since April 2011, but many have returned to Syria. The Turkish government plans to move most of the refugees to a purpose-built container city in Kilis province.

Syrian forces have laid mines near the borders of Lebanon and Turkey along routes used to escape the conflict in Syria, advocacy group Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

LEBANON

In Lebanon, there are 4,000 Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley.

On March 5, residents in the hillside town of Arsal in the Bekaa Valley told Reuters that up to 150 families had arrived from Syria the previous day, one of the biggest influxes so far. Those families trekked on foot through snow-capped hills to safety, but many others were caught, one refugee told Reuters.

In northern Lebanon, the UNHCR and the Lebanon High Relief Commission have jointly registered 7,000 refugees, including a few thousand in the city of Tripoli, a UNHCR spokesman said on March 9.

There are thought to be about 1,000 Syrian refugees in other parts of Lebanon.

JORDAN

About 5,000 Syrians have been registered over the last year, and another 2,000 are awaiting registration. A further 380 people are waiting at a transit facility at the border at Ramtha.

REFUGEES WITHIN SYRIA

There are 110,000 refugees within Syria, not including refugees from the Palestinian territories. Of the 110,000, all but 8,000 are from Iraq. 67,000 Iraqis have returned to Iraq in the past year.

"Inside Syria itself, Iraqi refugees report a significant increase in the price of basic commodities, due to inflation and the devaluation of the Syrian pound, now around 50 percent of what it was in March last year," UNHCR said in a statement.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Patrick Graham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-u-n-says-least-30-000-refugees-131456901.html

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