TURKEY-SYRIA CRISIS/REFUGEES/CROSSING Hundreds of Syrian refugess cross into Turkey as border crossing opens

Record ID: 274646

  • Title: TURKEY-SYRIA CRISIS/REFUGEES/CROSSING Hundreds of Syrian refugess cross into Turkey as border crossing opens
  • Date: 22nd September 2014
  • Summary: SURUC, TURKEY (SEPTEMBER 22, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SECURITY, REFUGEES WAITING AT BORDER CROSSING SECURITY ALLOWING REFUGEES TO CROSS INTO TURKEY SOLDIERS STANDING AS REFUGEES CARRY THEIR BELONGINGS ACROSS BORDER INTO TURKEY SOLDIER CHECKING BELONGINGS OF REFUGEES VARIOUS OF REFUGEES CARRYING THEIR BELONGINGS ACROSS BORDER INTO TURKEY VARIOUS OF WOMAN CARRYING CHILD AS
  • Embargoed: 7th October 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4W3SFUSI3XDVCU49MT7J8HJ33
  • Story Text: Hundreds of Syrian refugees were allowed into Turkey on Monday (September 22) as Turkish authorities opened the border crossing for the day.
    Refugees, including many women and children, piled at the border since the early hours of the day and some had been stranded along the border crossing for days before being allowed into Turkey.
    Soldiers in military uniform checked their belongings as they walked into Turkey, where Turkish Red Crescent workers handed out bottles of water and assisted elderly men and women across the border.
    "They came into our houses and dragged our daughters away. What kind of Muslims are they? What kind of Islam is this? They are beheading people. We came here to seek shelter," refugee Ismail Ahmad said as he cried.
    More than 130,000 Syrian Kurds fled an advance by Islamic State militants into Turkey in the past three days and authorities are preparing for more, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday.
    Syrian Kurdish fighters said they halted an advance by IS militants to the east of a predominantly Kurdish town near the border with Turkey, a spokesman for the main armed Kurdish group said.
    He said the eastern front was the scene of the fiercest fighting in the offensive launched by IS last Tuesday (September 16) on Kobani, also known in Arabic as Ayn al-Arab.
    The offensive is Islamic State's second attempt to take Kobani since June, when it staged a lightning advance across northern Iraq, seizing the city of Mosul and with it Iraqi weaponry including American-made hardware the Syrian Kurds said is now being used against them.
    The town's strategic location has been blocking the Sunni Muslim insurgents from consolidating their gains in northern Syria. The previous attack on the city, in July, was fought off with the help of Kurds who crossed the border from Turkey.
    Residents who fled Kobani and its surrounding villages said the militants were executing people of all ages in the areas they had seized to create a climate of fear and slavish obedience.
    "We have been waiting at the border for the past four days with our children. We are in a miserable situation," said an unidentified refugee who crossed into Turkey on Monday.
    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the Syrian war, said Islamic State fighters had made no significant advance in the last 24 hours.
    The United States has launched air strikes against IS in Iraq and has said it will not hesitate to strike the group in Syria, but wants allies to join its campaign.
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