Up to 11,000 people flee Syria in 24-hour period
BY ZEINA KARAM & JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press
Saturday, November 10, 2012
11/10/12 at 7:45 AM
As many as 11,000 people fled Syria in 24 hours, some of them desperately clambering through a razor-wire fence into Turkey on Friday to escape fierce fighting between rebels and government forces for control of a border town.
The exodus is a sign of the escalating ferocity of the violence, which has killed more than 36,000 people since March 2011. Despite the bloodshed, embattled President Bashar Assad insisted there was no civil war in Syria, saying in a rare TV appearance that he was protecting Syrians against "terrorism" supported from abroad.
The flood of Syrians into neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon was "the highest that we have had in quite some time," said Panos Moumtzis, the U.N. refugee agency's regional coordinator for the region.
About 2,000 to 3,000 people are fleeing Syria daily, and the recent surge brings the number registered with the agency to more than 408,000, he said.
During the 24-hour period that began Thursday, 9,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey - including 70 who were wounded and two who then died, U.N. officials said. Jordan and Lebanon each absorbed another 1,000 refugees.
The largest flow into Turkey came from the fighting at Ras al-Ayn in the predominantly Kurdish oil-producing northeastern province of al-Hasaka. The town hugs the border, practically adjacent to the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar.
On Thursday, rebels captured a border crossing between the two towns, Ceylanpinar's mayor, Ismail Aslan, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Rebels on Friday overran three security compounds in the town belonging to the military intelligence, air force intelligence and general intelligence directorate agencies, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group.
More than 20 soldiers were killed in the fighting, the Observatory said.
Regime forces shelled rebel positions Friday morning, Aslan said. Regime tanks were also moving in to join the fight, according to another opposition activist group, the Local Coordination Committees.
Syria's more than 2 million Kurds, long marginalized, have largely stayed out of the fighting, although some have taken part in demonstrations against Assad. But like other minority groups, they have increasingly been drawn into the fighting.
The rebel push on Ras al-Ayn, an ethnically mixed town inhabited by Kurds, Arab Muslims and Christians, was likely to inflame tensions with the Kurds who fear a government offensive to flush out the fighters.
Video from Turkey's Anadolu news agency showed Syrians jumping over and climbing through the razor-wire fence on the 566-mile border to cross into Ceylanpinar.
Original Print Headline: 11,000 flee Syria in 24 hours
Associated Images:
A Syrian family who fled their home because of government shelling take refuge in September at Bab Al-Salameh, hoping to cross to one of the refugee camps in Turkey near the Syrian town of Azaz. As many as 9,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey on Thursday to flee the violence in their country, a U.N. official said Friday. Associated Press file
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