Up to 1.5 million people could flee Syrian escalation, UN official says

FILE PHOTO: Displaced women who fled the Aleppo countryside, sit with their children in Tabqa, Syria December 4, 2024. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) - Up to 1.5 million people could be forced to flee a surge in fighting in Syria, a senior U.N. official said on Friday, as rebels pressed on with their lightning offensive against government forces.

The violence has already displaced 280,000 people since it erupted in late November, Samer AbdelJaber, the World Food Programme's Director for Emergency Coordination, Strategic Analysis and Humanitarian Diplomacy, told reporters in Geneva.