UN says 11,000 Syrians flee in past 24 hours

GENEVA — 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.