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Amid violence, Syrians race to borders

(CNN) -- The Syrian cab driver tolerated beatings, arrests and daily indignities the country's 16 months of turmoil.

But after a rocket struck his house the Daraa province city of Herak last week, the man and family finally had enough.

The 29-year- Sunni man, his wife, two young daughters and relations left their homes on July 16 and embarked a journey at night to the nearby Jordanian border.

He was the more than 120,000 people who've fled the neighboring countries -- Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan -- to escape the warring Syria.

Syrian military stretched amid defection, fighting

The U.N. High Commissioner Refugees, Antonio Guterres, on Friday expressed his growing concern the dramatic flight.

"With the spread deadly violence, I am gravely concerned the thousands of Syrian civilians and refugees who have been forced flee their homes," Guterres said.

The driver's story punctuates the misery the restive nation, engulfed in what is now regarded as a civil between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and foes.

The cabbie is one of millions who have had to wrestle whether they should brave staying or resort leaving. The man, who answered questions from CNN translators at the Bashabsheh resettlement camp Jordan, didn't want his name used. But he cited many factors that led what was a spontaneous trip to border.

"It had been increasingly difficult to work a driver due to stricter and more frequent road checkpoints and fear random arrests and imprisonment," he said. "Everybody in Daraa is targeted by Syrian security because the revolution started ."

The miseries of daily hit home, he said. "Shopping for milk for the children was risky. Medical care inaccessible."

He had apprehended twice, once in June 2011 when he was arrested in his taxi a checkpoint and beaten up while taking a man to visit his wife, labor at a hospital. Two months later, he was arrested waiting in his taxi for three men in a money-exchange shop. Security officers accused the three arranging a demonstration. They arrested the men and the taxi . The driver was beaten up.

He was scared about the psychological well- of his daughter, growing anxious over the sounds gunfire and war. He thinks that his participation peaceful demonstrations may have put him at great . He and his family, along two of his sisters and their children, went to an assembly the Free Syrian Army helps fleeing Syrians.

Women and children traveled the border in vehicles and the men walked as the Jordanian army waited them to arrive.

The cab driver said he and the refugees regularly commiserate about life.

"The greatest difficulties are leaving houses, their country and life. It is difficult to accept, but there is choice because of the children," the driver said. "Seeking asylum is the worst in life."

U.N. refugee officials, neighboring governments and non- agencies have been working to help refugees, and the United Nations recently launched a drive $193 million to help refugees. The plan has received a quarter of the amount needed.

Syrians have trickling out of the country the conflict but those numbers have tripled April, the U.N. refugee agency said.

The latest U.N. number is that as Wednesday, 120,000 have sought protection but the refugee agency says the local governments count more.


Adapted and abridged from: CNN, July 21, 2012.