Syrian refugee crisis threatens whole region

Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, emphasized that Syrian refugee crisis threatens regional security, calling on the UN members to provide financial aid.

Guterres said the UN has aimed to raise $3.74 billion from the member states to help protect Syrian refugees, who fled in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt.

"The international community simply cannot afford to let this growing and increasingly protracted population of refugees fall through the cracks," Guterres said. "Nor can we fail to support the countries who generously host them."

The UN estimates at least 2.9 million registered Syrian refugees in the region. According to the refugee agency, this figure is growing rapidly at a rate of 100,000 per month. A big number of women and children among them faced "violence, exploitation and abuse".

The UN has repeated its concerns that Syrian refugees also face reduced food rations, raising the possibility of widespread malnutrition.

Due to poor hygiene conditions and a lack of access to clean water, Syrian families may also be at risk from diarrhea, typhoid, polio and other water-borne and contagious disease, the UN added.

UN chief spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, ''Emergency Relief Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs at the UN, Valerie Amos, remains deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Iraq, where families urgently need assistance and children are vulnerable to outbreaks of disease and malnutrition,"