Pressure on Assad grows as Syrians flee to neighbouring Turkey
Some of those fleeing the town of Jisr al-Shughur sought sanctuary in neighbouring Turkey after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would not turn away Syrian refugees.
About 160 Syrians crossed the border in two waves, bringing to 550 the number taking refuge in Turkey in recent days.
The first group, mostly men, crossed through barbed wire near the village of Guvecci in the Mediterranean province of Hatay, following 120 others who arrived overnight.
A second group of some 100, mostly women and children without injuries, arrived in Karbeyaz, 30km north of Guvecci, and were then escorted by police to a refugee camp.
The prime minister said Turkey would keep its doors open to Syrians fleeing repression, and called on Assad to introduce democratic reforms.
The large number of Syrians fleeing amid the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters is deeply worrying, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said.
“There is a meaningful number of Syrians who have crossed the border into Turkey... and, of course, this is an area of enormous concern to us,” he said.
European powers have tweaked a resolution presented by Britain and France already distributed to the UN Security Council, which has faced strong opposition from Russia and China.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Mos-cow opposed the idea of the council voting to condemn Syria’s crackdown.
However, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the resolution condemned the repression and demanded accountability and humanitarian access in Syria. “If anyone votes against that resolution, or tries to veto it, that should be on their conscience.”
Syria’s anti-government protests erupted in March and more than 1,100 civilians, including dozens of children, have been killed in the ensuing crackdown, human rights groups say.
Damascus blames the unrest on “armed terrorist gangs” backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.
State television yesterday ran images of “massacres” by “armed terrorist groups” in Jisr al-Shughur, which, it said, had resulted in the deaths of 120 police and troops, as it talked up public support for a military assault on the town.
But opposition activists say the deaths resulted from a mutiny by troops who refused orders to attack protesters, and that convoys of troop reinforcements were heading towards Jisr al-Shughur.
Patrols had already reached the nearby villages of Urum al-Joz Uram and Ariha, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
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