Three million refugees have fled the conflict in Syria as of Friday, according to the UNHCR, the United Nations' Refugee Agency.
The New York Times reports that more than one million people have fled the country in the last 12 months alone. That figure only counts those who registered as refugees, the paper said. The total number is believed to be significantly higher.


The agency says that the crisis in Syria is now "the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era" with almost half of all Syrians forced to flee their homes.
The majority of refugees have fled to Syria's neighboring countries, with 1.14 million now seeking shelter in Lebanon,  815,000 in Turkey and 608,000 in Jordan, according to Reuters. More than 190,000 have been killed in Syria's three-year civil war, according to BBC News.

In addition, the agency says that the conflict has displaced over 6.5 million others within the country's borders. Over half of all those displaced people are children.
The agency also said that the ordeal faced by Syrians fleeing the fighting has become considerably worse in recent months: "Most [refugee families] have been on the run for a year or more, fleeing from village to village before taking the final decision to leave.

"There are worrying signs too that the journey out of Syria is becoming tougher, with many people forced to pay bribes at armed checkpoints proliferating along the borders. Refugees crossing the desert into eastern Jordan are being forced to pay smugglers hefty sums (ranging from $100 per person or more) to take them to safety.”

The conflict recently had its bloodiest week ever in late July, 2014, with 700 people being killed within 48 hours.
Syria has been racked with violent conflict since the Bashar al-Assad-led government cracked down on protests in the spring of 2011. Those protests then morphed into a full-scale armed rebellion.