 UNDERSTANDING STATELESSNESS IN THE SYRIA REFUGEE CONTEXT THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CONTEXT 2 The conflict in Syria began in 2011, plunging the country into a civil war. Since then hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and significant areas of the country have fallen under the control of armed non-State actors. This has caused a humanitarian disaster of colossal proportions: 4.8 million refugees are registered in countries around the region and over a million have travelled to Europe to seek refuge.24 Inside Syria, 6.5 million people are internally displaced and 13.5 million people – including six million children – are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection.25 In order to understand the way in which (the risk of) statelessness affects refugees from Syria in the region, it is important to first take a closer look at a number of elements of the Syrian context and the overall situation in the host countries in the region. 24 25 16 RESEARCH REPORT Data as of 30 September 2016. See Syria Refugee Response Inter-Agency Information Sharing Portal, available at: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php. For more on the situation of Syrian refugees in Europe, see, for instance, the online resource of the Migration Policy Institute at the European University Institute, The Syrian Refugee Crisis and its Repercussions for the EU, available at: http:// syrianrefugees.eu. Data as of 30 September 2016. See OCHA, portal for Syria, available at: http://www.unocha.org/syria.