Syria crisis: 66,000 'flee Islamic State' into Turkey 20 September 2014 Some 66,000 refugees - mainly Syrian Kurds - have crossed into Turkey in 24 hours, officials say, as Islamic State militants advance in northern Syria. Turkey opened its border on Friday to Syrians fleeing the Kurdish town of Kobane in fear of an IS attack. The UN refugee agency said it was boosting relief efforts as hundreds of thousands more could cross the border. IS controls large areas of Syria and Iraq, and has seized dozens of villages around Kobane, also called Ayn al-Arab. Turkey - which shares a border with Iraq and Syria - has taken in more than 847,000 refugees since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began three years ago. But the opening of the border has seen a dramatic increase in the past 24 hours. "As of today, the number of Syrian Kurds who entered Turkey has exceeded 60,000," Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters on Saturday. He was speaking from the southern Turkish province of Sanliurfa, where many of the refugees have sought shelter. Separately, a Turkish government official told the BBC's Mark Lowen that the number is as high as 66,000. Analysis. By Mark Lowen, on the Turkish-Syrian border The influx is astonishing - and still continues. At least 66,000 Syrian Kurds have entered Turkey since Friday, when the country opened parts of its border crossing with Syria. Around 300 Kurdish fighters are said to have gone the other way, crossing from Turkey into Syria to help resist the IS onslaught. Until recently, Turks and Kurds fought a civil war that killed 40,000 people. The fact that Turkey is now accepting tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees is a sign of how the rise of Islamic State is shifting allegiances in this region. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) said in a statement that, along with the Turkish government, it was preparing for the possibility of hundreds of thousands more refugees arriving over the coming days, as the battle for Kobane forced more people to flee. It added that the town had been living in relative safety for much of the Syrian conflict and as many as 200,000 internally displaced people had found refuge there. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 300 Kurdish fighters had joined Syrian Kurdish ranks in the Kobane area to fend off the IS advance. The activist group did not specify which Kurdish group the fighters belonged to. "Islamic State sees Kobane like a lump in the body: they think it is in their way," the observatory's Rami Abdulrahman said. Syrian activists say IS has seized as many as 60 villages surrounding Kobane since fighting began earlier this week. The observatory said on Saturday that at least 11 Kurds had been executed by IS, with the fate of some 800 residents who fled the villages "unknown". |
