SYRIA’S civil war has forced a record three million people out of the country after more than a million people fled in the past year, the UN refugee agency said today.

The tragic milestone means that about one of every eight Syrians has fled across the border and 6.5 million others have been displaced within Syria since the conflict began in March 2011, the Geneva-based agency said.

More than half of all those uprooted were children, it said.

The UN estimates there are nearly 35,000 people awaiting registration as refugees and hundreds of thousands who are not registered.

“The Syria crisis has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

The recent surge in fighting appears to be worsening the already desperate situation for Syrian refugees, the agency said, as the extremist Islamic State group (Isis) expands its control of broad areas straddling the Syria-Iraq border and terrorises rivals and civilians in both countries.

An independent UN commission said the group is systematically carrying out widespread bombings, beheadings and mass killings that amount to crimes against humanity in both areas.

Isis is taking violence against civilians “to a new level,” even threatening cross-border humanitarian aid operations recently approved by the security council, UN deputy humanitarian chief Kang Kyung Wha told the council on Thursday.

Ms Kang warned that both Isis and the Nusra Front were advancing on border crossings with Turkey “and could hinder cross-border operations.”

She also expressed alarm at the group’s “horrific atrocities” in central Syria.

She cited local sources as saying that up to 700 members of a tribe accused of apostasy had been killed or kidnapped over the past two weeks, with “some beheaded or crucified.”

Meanwhile, 44 Fijian soldiers working as UN peacekeepers remained captive yesterday while 75 Philippine soldiers were locked in a tense standoff with the rebels, according to the two Pacific nations.

Fijian Commander Brigadier General Mosese Tikoitoga said he had been informed his soldiers were alive and unharmed.