Haroon Siddique and Brian Whitaker
guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 August 2012
"....
Refugees top 200,000
The number of Syrian refugees has topped 200,000, already surpassing the projection of 185,000 set out by the UN refugee agency for the end of this year (via Reuters).
The total reflects an increase of some 30,000 in the last week alone to Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, but also takes into account a change in the way the agency counts those in Jordan, the UN high commissioner for refugees said. It also expressed concern about how the violence in Lebanon was impacting on its work.
Adrian Edwards told a news briefing in Geneva:
We are now at a much higher level of 202,512 refugees in the surrounding region. The deteriorating security situation in Lebanon is hampering our work to help refugees fleeing Syria's conflict, though operations are continuing.
More than 3,500 people fled to Turkey over the last 24 hours, Turkey's disaster and emergency management directorate (Afad) said, one of the highest daily refugee flows since the start of the uprising last year.
The new arrivals bring the number of Syrian refugees now sheltering in Turkey to more than 78,000, Afad said. There were some 44,000 refugees registered at the end of July....
• France has said it is prepared to to take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria.
French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian cautioned that closing the Arab nation's entire airspace would be tantamount to "going to war" and require a willing international coalition that does not yet exist but he urged the international community to consider backing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria. He told France 24 television that Paris would participate in a full no-fly operation if it followed international legal principles. But for now, he suggested that a partial closure — which Hillary Clinton said Washington was considering — should be studied....."
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