UNITED NATIONS, Oct 2: Another 300,000 Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday and revised the regional response plan budget to $487.9 million.

“The continuing rapid growth in refugee numbers underscores the urgency of last week’s revised Syria regional response plan in support of up to 710,000 Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries by the end of this year,” the spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, Adrian Edwards, said in a statement. According to UNHCR, a total of 311,500 Syrians are currently registered or awaiting registration as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.

Mr Edwards warned that humanitarian agencies now faced a race against time with the onset of winter temperatures across the region as many refugees were living in tents, and underscored the need to put a plan in place over the next 10 weeks.