BEIRUT — Um Ali is one of more than a million Syrians who have fled the country since 2011, when the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began.

She left Aleppo with her husband and son four months ago to join her sister, mother and other family in Lebanon. Her son had just turned 18 — the age when Syrian males are required to do their military service.

"He's an only child," the 45-year-old housewife says. "I was afraid he would get hurt in Syria, and I was afraid of the war, so we fled."

The Lebanese government estimates that 1.2 million Syrians have come to Lebanon since the uprising began in March 2011. The refugees span the entire social and economic strata of Syrian society. Some are rich, some are poor; many are from the towns and villages that have been pummeled by government airstrikes and artillery fire.  Others have escaped the urban combat in Idlib, Aleppo or the Damascus suburbs.

Um Ali and her family settled with her sister and mother in the Beirut neighborhood of Said Ghawash.  [Link]