The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the number of people seeking haven in neighbouring countries had jumped since the beginning of the year. Half of the refugees were children, the UN said, most of them under 11 and often traumatised by their experiences. The largest numbers of refugees were seeking shelter in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. "With a million people in flight, millions more displaced internally, and thousands of people continuing to cross the border every day, Syria is spiralling towards full-scale disaster," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. "This tragedy has to be stopped," he added, warning that the influx of people had also stretched the resources of Syria's neighbours. © UNHCR/E.Byun 
 
 UNHCR named Bushra, a 19-year-old mother of two, as the symbolic 1 millionth refugee. In Lebanon, for example, the influx of almost a third of a million refugees since last February has swollen the country's population by 10%. Turkey, providing a temporary home for some 184,000 refugees, has spent more than $600m (459m euros; £396m) setting up 17 refugee camps, and is building new ones to meet the increasing need, the UN said. "These countries should not only be recognised for their unstinting commitment to keeping their borders open for Syrian refugees, they should be massively supported as well," Mr Guterres said. In December, the UN's Regional Response Plan for Syrian Refugees estimated that 1.1 million Syrian refugees would arrive in neighbouring countries by the end of June 2013. In effect, more than 400,000 have became refugees since 1 January 2013. The UN's emergency response plan for Syrian refugees, Oxfam said, currently lacked 75% of the funding required. Iraq, juggling its own crisis with more than 1 million Iraqis internally displaced, has received more than 100,000 Syrian refugees in the past year.
– A million people have now fled Syria to avoid the war raging there—and half of them are children, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported today. "Syria is spiraling towards full-scale disaster," commissioner António Guterres said. "We are doing everything we can to help, but the international humanitarian response capacity is dangerously stretched." The defections have accelerated dramatically this year, with more than 400,000 fleeing since January. The UN hadn't expected to pass the 1 million mark for three more months, the BBC reports. The influx has put a real strain on neighboring countries; Lebanon, for instance, has seen its population swell as much as 10%, while Turkey has spent $600 million on refugee camps. Jordan and Iraq have also been sharing the load. Jordan's king yesterday urged other countries to help carry "the tremendous burden," and Guterres echoed that call. "These countries should not only be recognized for their unstinting commitment to keeping their borders open for Syrian refugees," he said, "they should be massively supported."