Geneva: The number of Syrian refugees, who are either registered or awaiting registration, has surpassed 1.5 million, while the actual number is much higher, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The increasingly widening gap between needs and available resources is a growing challenge, reported Xinhua citing UNHCR's spokesperson Dan McNorton on Friday .
"Over the past four months, we have seen a rapid deterioration compared to the previous 20 months of this conflict," he said.
The UNHCR had continued to respond to the emergency needs of those in need inside Syria and in neighbouring countries....
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10:59 AM, May 18, 2013
Beirut: At least 94,000 people have been killed during Syria's two-year conflict, but the death toll is likely to be as high as 120,000, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. The group said that at least 41,000 of those confirmed killed were Alawites, the sect of President Bashar al-Assad. Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Observatory, said that the Alawite death figures were confirmed by eight different...
02:06 AM, May 15, 2013
Beirut: Israel rushed to beef up its rocket defenses on its northern border on Sunday to shield against possible retaliation after carrying out two airstrikes in Syria over 48 hours - an unprecedented escalation of Israeli involvement in the Syrian civil war. Syria and its patron Iran hinted at possible retribution, though the rhetoric in official statements appeared relatively muted. Despite new concerns about a regional war, Israeli officials signaled...
06:19 AM, May 06, 2013
Beirut: Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital on Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said. The attack, the second in three days and the third this year, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war. Syrian state media...
09:16 PM, May 05, 2013
Rome: At least 50 Syrian soldiers have deserted the army and joined rebel forces, Syrian activists said. A colonel was among the deserters who joined the rebels near the city of Qamishli in northeast Syria, amid raging battles in the area, Syria's Local Coordinating Committees opposition group said on its Facebook page. Fighters from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front - branded a terror group by the US State Department - are...
09:27 AM, Apr 13, 2013
Islamabad: Thirty terrorists and 23 soldiers have been killed during fighting between security forces and pro-Taliban rebels in the lawless Khyber tribal region of Pakistan, according to a media report on Monday. The fighting erupted after troops, including Special Services Group commandos, launched a "decisive operation" against terrorists in Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency. Twenty-three soldiers, including commandoes, and an unspecified number of members of a tribal lashkar or militia...
12:46 PM, Apr 08, 2013
In a stern warning to rebels, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that from now on doors won't remain open for those who left the party and contested elections against official nominees as he would do away with the past practice of re-inducting such members. ...
12:35 AM, Mar 02, 2013
Syrians in "leadership positions" who may be responsible for war crimes have been identified, along with units accused of perpetrating them, United Nations investigators said on Monday. Both government forces and armed rebels are committing war crimes, including killings and torture, spreading terror among civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict, they said. ...
06:45 PM, Feb 18, 2013
Islamist insurgents launched a surprise raid in the heart of the Malian town of Gao on February 10, battling French and local troops in a blow to efforts to secure Mali's recaptured north. ...
11:36 AM, Feb 11, 2013
More than 100 people have been killed in South Sudan in an attack by rebels and ethnic allies on a convoy of families from a rival tribe and their cattle, an official said on February 10. ...
10:58 AM, Feb 11, 2013
French warplanes pounded Islamist rebel camps in the far north of Mali on Sunday, military sources said, a day after French President Francois Hollande was hailed as a saviour during a visit to the West African country. Thierry Burkhard, spokesman for the French army in Paris, said the overnight raids targeted logistics bases and training camps used by the al Qaeda-linked rebels near the town of Tessalit, close to the...
09:21 AM, Feb 04, 2013
French President Francois Hollande is in Mali for a visit even as French troops continue to fight Islamist rebels attempting to overthrow the national government. The President was mobbed by cheering Malians as he pledged he would finish the job of restoring government control. ...
10:30 AM, Feb 03, 2013
Bangladesh on Tuesday intensified security and ordered stern action against "troublemakers" after activists of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami indulged in violence and attacked police to demand halting of the 1971 war crimes trial of their leaders. Dozens of policemen, 21 of them in Dhaka, were injured as the extreme right wing activists launched attacks with homemade bombs in the capital, in southwestern Chittagong and several northwestern districts on Monday. ...
08:15 PM, Jan 29, 2013
Syrian opposition fighters have freed about 300 prisoners from a jail near the border with Turkey and found 30 others shot in the head, an opposition activist said on Saturday. Fighters from various brigades have been attacking the Idlib Central Prison for the last three days. ...
05:23 PM, Jan 27, 2013
More than 100 people were shot, stabbed or possibly burned to death by government forces in the Syrian city of Homs, a monitoring group said on Thursday, and fierce fighting raged across the country. ...
04:06 AM, Jan 18, 2013
French troops launched their first ground assault against Islamist rebels in Mali on January 16 in a broadening of their operation against battle-hardened al Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes. France has called for international support against the Islamist insurgents it says pose a threat to Africa and the West, acknowledging it faces a long fight against the well-equipped fighters who seized Mali's vast desert north...
12:33 PM, Jan 17, 2013
French fighter jets pounded an Islamist rebel stronghold deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's north. The attack on Gao, the largest city in the desert region controlled by the Islamist alliance, marked a decisive intensification on the third day of French air raids, striking at the heart of...
09:00 AM, Jan 14, 2013
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war. ...
01:14 AM, Jan 07, 2013
Syria said on January 4 that a car bomb at a crowded petrol station in Damascus was set off by "terrorists", a term it uses for rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The blast on January 3 night killed 11 people and wounded 40 at a station packed with Syrians queuing for fuel, which has become scarce in the 21-month insurgency against Assad, in the second petrol station attack...
12:35 PM, Jan 05, 2013
Syrian rebels fully captured a northern town near the Turkish border on December 25 after weeks of heavy fighting and attacked a regime air base in a neighboring province, activists said. The air base is in Aleppo province, where opposition fighters have already captured three other large military bases in recent months. Rebels have also laid siege to the international airport in the city of Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital, and...
07:04 PM, Dec 26, 2012
