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Syria topped Afghanistan as the country with the largest refugee population under United Nations care, as the countrys civil war raged for a fourth year.

By June 2014 more than 3 million Syrians, over 10 percent of the population, had fled their country. That accounted for 23 percent of all refugees registered with the UN Refugee Agency, the organization said in a new report released today.

Afghanistan slipped to second with 2.7 million refugees, after topping the ranking for more than three decades, according to agencys Mid-Year Trends 2014 report, a preview of an annual report on global displacement trends. Somalia ranked third with 1.1 million refugees, followed by South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar and Iraq.

More people were displaced worldwide at the end of 2013 than during World War II, driven mainly by the worsening conflict in Syria, the agency said in its earlier report. There is no political settlement in sight as sectarian tensions intensify, rebel groups remain fractious and regional and global proxies continue their deadlock.

As long as the international community continues to fail to find political solutions to existing conflicts and to prevent new ones from starting, we will continue to have to deal with the dramatic humanitarian consequences, UN High Commissioner for RefugeesAntonio Guterres said in an e-mailed statement.

With 1.4 million people crossing borders as refugees and another 4.1 million displaced within their own countries in the first half of last year, the agency said it is now assisting a record 46.3 million people.

The report doesnt include about 5 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency, which is dedicated solely to their needs and is independent from the UN Refugee Agency.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sangwon Yoon in United Nations at syoon32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net Andrew Davis, Douglas Wong

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Syria Overtakes Afghanistan as Largest Source of Global Refugees