At least 45,000 people have fled fighting in Syria's southwestern Daraa province, heading towards the border with Jordan, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that civilians including children had been killed and injured and a hospital had been put out of operation by an air strike, Reuters reported.
Bettina Luescher, spokeswoman of the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP), told the ssame briefing: "We expect the number of displaced people could nearly double as violence escalates."
Zaman Al Wasl TV has interviewed some of the displaced people who start building a new refugee camp in the town of Braiqa near the Occupied Golan Heights. They said regime would not dare to pound them to avoid the Isralei retaliation.
Most of refugees fled an area so-called "Triangle of Death", which connects southern Damascus countryside with Daraa and Quneitra provinces. Rebels say elite regime troops backed by Iranian-backed local militias have been escalating hit and run attacks on their posts in "Triangle of Death" north of Daraa.
Syrian regime forces had so far made heavy use of artillery and rockets in the current assault, and Russian warplanes that were critical to the recovery of other rebel-held areas had not been deployed until now.
Jordan said Sunday it would be unable to host a new wave of Syrian refugees, according too AFP.
Some 650,000 Syrian refugees have registered with the United Nations in Jordan since fleeing their country's seven-year war, which was sparked by peaceful anti-regime protests in 2011.
Amman estimates the actual number is closer to 1.3 million people and says it has spent more than US$10 billion (RM40 billion) hosting them.
In recent weeks regime forces have dropped leaflets over Daraa and Quneitra, warning of impending military operations and calling on the rebels to surrender.
Zaman Al Wasl
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