The European Union has failed to deal with the humanitarian crisis faced by Syrian refugees, a high-level UN official said Tuesday.

At an event held by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on the refugee crisis, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the world must take more responsibility because a refugee crisis exists not only in Syria, but also in Burma, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and Iraq.

The situation in Syria has turned into a humanitarian crisis that European countries have neglected to adequately address.

"Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are the countries which mostly shoulder the burden of the Syrian refugees," Guterres said.

"If the international community continues to neglect refugees with these three countries, it will become inevitable for the problem to grow bigger."

The regime war on Syrians has claimed more than 300,000 lives since 2011 and made the country the world's single-largest source of refugees and displaced people.

Approximately 4 million Syrians have become refugees and at least 7.6 million have been internally displaced, according to UN figures.
Neighboring Turkey is now the largest refugee-hosting country in the world with more than 2 million Syrian refugees on its soil.

PHOTO CAPTION

Syrian refugees arrive on a raft, in rough seas, on a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos, October 27, 2015.

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