U.N.: $1.5 billion for Syrian refugees

The United Nations has launched humanitarian plans worth $1.5 billion to help ease the suffering of the more than one million Syrians who have fled the nation.

More than 525,000 Syrians have already crossed into neighboring countries, the U.N. announced Wednesday, estimating that more than one million will flee in the next six months.

The body believes that a quarter of Syria's entire population needs food, shelter, medical attention, hygiene materials, clothes and other relief after enduring nearly two years of war.

The U.N. is also asking for more than $520 million in additional aid, anticipating that the situation will only get worse as 2013 drags on.

That amount, officials believe, will help contribute to aid for an estimated 4 million people in Syria who urgently need help. The number of residents suffering has quadrupled from one million in March 2012 to four million in December, the U.N. reported Wednesday.

Many have fled. Between 2,000 and 3,000 refugees are crossing into Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq every day, according to the U.N.

Plans to help Syria have changed a lot over the past several months, which is "indicative of the rapid developments on the ground and the dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country," said Radhouane Nouicer, the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria with the U.N. "The magnitude of this humanitarian crisis is indisputable."

The aid announcement comes on the same day that one of the U.N.'s outreach groups told reporters that about 100,000 Palestinians have fled a large refugee camp in the Syrian capital of Damascus due to government airstrikes and fighting there.

By daybreak Wednesday, 1,092 refugees from the Yarmouk camp had crossed into Lebanon through the Masnaa border crossing, seeking refuge with relatives in different Palestinian camps in Bekaa, Sidon and Beirut.

At least 90 people were killed across Syria Wednesday, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a Syrian based opposition activist network. Of those deaths, 43 occurred in Aleppo.