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  • FILE This Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012 file photo shows Syrian children, who fled their homes due to government shelling, looking on, as they take refuge with their families at Bab Al-Salameh crossing border, hoping to cross to one of the refugee camps in Turkey, near the Syrian town of Azaz. As many as 9,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey overnight to flee the violence in their country, a United Nations official said Friday Nov. 9, 2012 citing officials in Turkey where footage showed refugees climbing through the barbed-wire fence separating the two countries. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

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November 9, 2012

UN says 11,000 Syrians flee in past 24 hours

BASSEM MROUE,Associated Press Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) —

Senior U.N. officials say 11,000 Syrians have fled the country in the past 24 hours in what they call an unusual spike in the number of refugees.

Panos Moumtzis, the U.N. refugee agency's coordinator for the region, told reporters Friday in Geneva that 9,000 Syrians fled to Turkey, while 1,000 went into Jordan and 1,000 into Lebanon just in one day.

He said the estimated figures are "really the highest we have had in quite some time" compared with an average 2,000 to 3,000 Syrians fleeing daily.

They bring the number of Syrian refugees registered with the agency to more than 408,000.

Radhouane Nouicer, the U.N.'s regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, said after an international meeting on Syrian humanitarian aid that the country is seeing unrelenting increases in violence.

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