Five thousand people a month are dying in the Syria war, which has created the worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, U.N. officials told the Security Council on Tuesday. The officials called on the council to take stronger action to deal with the fallout from the 26-month-old civil war in which the United Nations says up to 100,000 people have died. "The extremely high rate of killings nowadays-approximately 5,000 a month-demonstrates the drastic deterioration of the conflict," U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic told the 15-country body. Almost 1.8 million people are now registered with the United Nations in countries around Syria, and an average of 6,000 people a day are now fleeing, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said. "We have not seen a refugee outflow escalate at such a frightening rate since the Rwandan genocide almost 20 years ago," Guterres said. "This crisis has been going on for much longer than anyone feared, with unbearable humanitarian consequences." U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said the international community may have to consider cross-border operations to get aid into Syria.
