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Over four million people have fled Syria since the outbreak of civil war almost five years ago, the United Nations said Thursday. The latest statistic from the embattled country makes it the largest global refugee crisis in a quarter-century.

On Thursday, refugee agency Unhcr announced that the total number of Syrian refugees in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey - as well as other parts of North Africa – stood at 4,013,000 people. Meanwhile, aid agencies estimate that fighting in the country has rendered homeless at least 7.6 million people still living in the country.

This is the “biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told the Associated Press, in a statement. "It is a population that needs the support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into poverty."