UN official: Nearly a million displaced in Syria in 2018

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More than 920,000 people were displaced inside Syria during the first four months of 2018, the highest level in the seven-year conflict, the United Nations said Monday.

"We are seeing a massive displacement inside Syria... From January to April, there were over 920,000 newly displaced people," Panos Moumtzis, the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, told reporters in Geneva.

"This was the highest displacement in that short period of time we have seen since the conflict started," he said.

May 5, 2018: Fras Abou Al-Kheir and his daughter, displaced from their homes in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, have moved to Afrin, which itself had been emptied of its residents just weeks earlier, after a Turkish-led offensive forced tens of thousands to flee. /VCG Photo

It brings the number of people internally displaced in the war-ravaged country to 6.2 million, while there are still some 5.6 million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, according to UN figures.

Moumtzis said most of the newly displaced had been forced on the move by escalations in fighting in the former rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta and within the northwestern province of Idlib, which is almost entirely controlled by various jihadist and hardline rebels.

Panos Moumtzis, United Nations humanitarian coordinator on the Syria crisis, attends a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, June 11, 2018. /VCG Photo

His comments came after several deadly air strikes in recent days in Idlib that have left dozens of people dead, including children. He said Idlib is part of the "de-escalation" agreement for Syria reached between Turkey, Russia and Iran, and warned of the dire consequences if the province, which has some 2.5 million inhabitants, sinks into full-blown conflict.

More than 350,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011.

Source(s): AFP