Syrian Kurds continue to flee to Iraq

Thousands of Syrian refugees were stranded at the border with Iraq's Kurdish region Sunday after more than 15,000 crossed into Iraq since Thursday to escape the ongoing civil war in their homeland, the U.N. refugee agency said. Refugees who made it across, most of them believed to be Kurdish, were setting up makeshift homes at a hastily erected camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Other refugees were reportedly staying in mosques or residing with family or friends who live in the region, reported the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The Kurdish region of Iraq witnessed a major influx refugees from Syria over the last few days "unlike anything we have witnessed entering Iraq previously," said Claire Bourgeois, the UNHCR's Iraq representative.

The agency said the reasons for the increase remained unclear, although there was a recent sharp rise in clashes between Syrian Kurds and anti-government fighters.

Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in Syria, make up more than 10 percent of the country's population and have seen their loyalties split in the conflict between pro- and anti-government groups.

Syrian government forces pulled out of the Kurdish-majority areas of northern and northeastern Syria last year, leaving Kurdish groups to run their own affairs.

But al-Qaeda loyalists have been locked in deadly fighting with Kurdish armed groups in recent months.

Iraq’s Kurdish region allocated an additional $20 million to its budget for Syrian Kurdish refugees but required further help from the U.N. and Iraq's federal government, said Dindar Zebari, deputy chief of the Iraqi Kurdish foreign-affairs department. 

More than 1.9 million Syrians have fled their homeland since unrest began in March 2011 and later exploded into a civil war. Iraq hosted nearly 155,000 registered Syrian refugees, most of them Kurds, before the latest influx, according to the U.N. Most have fled to Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey.

The U.N. estimates that more than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Al Jazeera and wire services