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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Four years after the start of Syria’s civil war, more than 3.5 million people have fled the country and registered in refugee camps in neighbouring states, while nearly 220,000 have applied for asylum in Europe, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The impact of Syria’s refugee crisis on the Middle East has been immense. Turkey hosts more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees, Lebanon is home to 1.1 million, and Jordan has registered nearly 620,000, the UNHCR said. Iraq hosts 232,800 Syrian refugees and Egypt close to 136,000.

These five countries host 97% of Syria’s refugees, according to Amnesty International. About 80,000 Syrians live in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp, making it the country’s fourth largest city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a credible source inside the country, estimates that 210,000 people have died in the conflict. About 6.5 million Syrians have been displaced within the country, according to the Migration Policy Centre.

Syrian refugees now comprise 26% of Lebanon’s total population, placing a strain on humanitarian resources. Political pressure to stem the flow of new arrivals led Lebanon to impose strict entry requirements on Syrians at the end of last year, raising concerns that more displaced people will remain in danger inside the country as fighting continues.

Syrians fleeing the civil war are also streaming across European borders. European law requires people to be physically present in the country they are petitioning for asylum. This has sparked a boom in illegal migration across the Mediterranean.

About 218,000 Syrian refugees had applied for asylum in EU countries as of December 2014, according to the UNHCR. Germany and Sweden fielded nearly half of all asylum requests.

The UNHCR’s data does not include internally displaced people or those who have not registered at a recognised refugee camp.

Refugees are defined by the UNHCR as those with a legitimate fear of being persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, or affiliation with a social or political group, and who are outside their country of origin. Asylum seekers are people whose claims of persecution have not yet been substantiated.

According to the 1951 refugee convention, which was amended in 1967, “refugees deserve, as a minimum, the same standards of treatment enjoyed by other foreign nationals in a given country and, in many cases, the same treatment as nationals”.

The UK has fielded asylum applications from fewer than 6,000 Syrian refugees, but the British government has committed £800m in humanitarian aid to the Syrian crisis, its largest response to a humanitarian emergency.

*The Guardian