Aid-starved refugees have no choice
After escaping a devastating war, frustrated Syrian refugees in aid-starved neighbouring states say they must now choose between joining an exodus to Europe or "returning home to die".
Millions of Syrians have found shelter in surrounding countries including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan that are now struggling to cope with the massive influx.
A lack of jobs and humanitarian assistance means that many are now giving up on their host nations.
"What do they expect us to do, to die in silence?" said Mohammed al-Hariri, who lives in Jordan's vast Zaatari desert refugee camp.
"Syrians now have two choices: either to return and die in their country or to emigrate," he said.
Around 340,000 migrants reached the EU's borders in the seven months to July, in the continent's biggest migration crisis since World War II, with hundreds perishing at sea.
Most are escaping the more than four-year-old conflict in Syria that has claimed over 240,000 lives, and more are expected to follow.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimates that more than four million Syrians have fled the bloodshed which broke out in March 2011, mostly to neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey but also Egypt and Iraq.
The host countries are struggling to cope, especially in the absence of sufficient international aid, said Andrew Harper, the UNHCR representative in Jordan.
"If you do not provide resources to countries like Jordan to meet assistant obligations and protection obligations then people will move to where they can find that and that is why people are moving to Europe," he said.
More than 1.1 million Syrians have flooded across the border into Lebanon and around 600,000 into Jordan, according to the UNHCR. Amman puts the figure at 1.4 million, making up 20 percent of the resources-poor kingdom's population.
Jordan and Lebanon have repeatedly appealed for increased aid to ease the burden. But a UN donation drive for 2015 has so far only raised 41 percent of the target figures, forcing the World Food Programme to trim its assistance to Syrian refugees in both Lebanon and Jordan.
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