AMMAN: More than 12,000 Syrians, mostly women and children, have sought refuge in Jordan in the past six days to escape the war in their homeland, the government said on Tuesday.

Some 25,000 Syrians have entered Jordan since the beginning of the year, Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for refugee affairs told AFP.

"More than 12,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan in the past six days. The majority of them were children and women," Hmud said.

"Since the beginning of this year, some 25,000 Syrians have entered the country."

Jordan says it is hosting more than 300,000 Syrian refugees, while the UN refugee agency says 176,000 of them are UNHCR-registered.

The United Nations has predicted that the number of Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries will double to 1.1 million by June if the civil war in Syria does not end.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict which erupted in March 2011.