“Half of the total population of Syrian people, nearly 9.3 million individuals urgently need humanitarian aid,” Ban told the Syria donors conference in the Persian Gulf state of Kuwait on Wednesday.

The one-day second International Conference for Humanitarian Pledging for Syria aims to raise money for the UN’s $6.5-billion humanitarian appeal for 13 million Syrians affected by the 34-month conflict.

“When we met a year ago, four million Syrians needed aid ... A year later, we face a regional crisis and a humanitarian crisis,” the UN chief said.

The UN is looking for $2.3 billion for supporting 9.3 million people inside Syria and $4.2 billion for Syrian refugees.

In a meeting also in Kuwait on Tuesday, dozens of NGOs pledged $400 million to alleviate the plight of Syrians.

The European Union also offered an extra $225 million of aid, increasing the bloc’s total contributions to $2.74 billion.

In December 2013, the United Nations expressed concern about the condition of the Syrian refugees struggling with the harsh winter weather in neighboring countries.

The latest estimate indicates that some 4.1 million Syrians would be living as refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt by the end of 2014. Currently, an estimated 2.4 million refugees from Syria are residing in neighboring countries.

Syria has been gripped by deadly crisis since March 2011. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 130,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced due to the violence in Syria.

HH/HH