UNHCR Says Number of Syrian Refugees Exceeded 400,000 in Lebanon

The number of Syrian refugees, who fled the turmoil in their country to Lebanon, has soared to more than 400,000, the weekly report for the U.N.'s refugee body said on its weekly report on Monday.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees the number of registered refugees reached 12,000 during the past week, with 262,000 refugees already registered and 140,000 in the process of being registered.

The report said that there are currently 113,000 Syrian refugee in Northern Lebanon, 99,000 in the Bekaa, 28,000 Beirut and 20,000 in Southern Lebanon.

Lebanon appealed in January for $180 million from Arab countries to help it meet the Syrian refugee influx that has threatened to bring the number of the displaced to 420,000 in June.

The Arab League decided to send a team to Syria's neighboring countries to assess the status of refugees ahead of a donor conference in Kuwait on January 30.

President Bashar Assad's regime has long dismissed the rebels as "terror" groups backed by Western powers and driven by al-Qaida-style ideologies.

The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria's two-year conflict, which broke out after the army unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent, turning the uprising into a bloody insurgency.