Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
GENEVA (AP) - Top officials from four nations harboring more than 1.8 million Syrian refugees say they badly need outside help to care for those fleeing the violence.
In a joint statement Wednesday, the foreign ministers from Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, Lebanon's social affairs minister and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres urgently appealed for greater international support for the refugees.
Guterres says Syria's neighbors are paying a heavy price to deal with Syria's civil war. His agency says the conflict has forced over 2 million people out of the country _ more than half of them children _ and displaced over 4 million others within its borders since March 2011.
He says there are 716,000 refugees in Lebanon, 515,000 in Jordan, 460,000 in Turkey, 168,000 in Iraq and 110,000 in Egypt.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
