United Nations - Lebanon says that it is being overwhelmed by “a million-plus” Syrian refugees who have crossed the border to flee the civil war.
The United Nations has registered 587 000 Syrian refugees. But Lebanese UN Ambassador Nawaf Salam says that many more have come into Lebanon without registering and are staying with friends and families in informal asylum.
Another 500 000 long-term Palestinian refugees are already in Lebanon.
Lebanon is a country of just 4 million people, so the huge numbers of refugees are politically sensitive in a nation that endured its own civil war in the 1980s.
The UN estimates that another 1.7 million Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, many of them children. - Sapa-AP