Thousands flee Syrian assault

Refugees push each other as they wait for tents in Bab-Al Salam, northern Syria, near the Turkish border crossing on Saturday. — AFP

Thousands of Syrians were braving cold and rain at the Turkish border on Saturday after fleeing a Russian-backed regime assault on Aleppo in northern Syria that threatens a fresh humanitarian disaster.

Syria’s government, for its part, warned it would combat any uninvited foreign ground intervention, following reports that Riyadh and Ankara which support rebel forces could send in troops.

Tens of thousands have escaped fierce fighting as government forces unleashed an advance this week against rebels, severing the Opposition’s main supply route into the northern metropolis of Aleppo.

On Saturday morning, Turkey’s Oncupinar border crossing — which faces Bab al-Salama on Syrian soil — remained closed, an AFP correspondent said, as Turkish authorities said they were working to free up space within existing camps to accommodate the latest influx.

“Our teams are ready to provide them with water and food as soon as they arrive,” Turkish Red Crescent head Ahmet Lutfi Akar said.

Around 40,000 civilians have fled their homes to escape the regime offensive, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“The situation of the displaced is tragic,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based monitoring group.

“Families have been sleeping outside in the cold in fields and tents with no international NGO there to help them.”

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reaffirmed on Saturday that his country would keep its “open border policy” for Syrian refugees.

“We still keep this open border policy for these people fleeing from the aggression, from the regime as well as Russian airstrikes,” he said.

“We have received already 5,000 of them; another 50,000 to 55,000 are on their way and we cannot leave them there,” he said.

EU officials earlier reminded Turkey of its international obligations to keep its frontiers open to refugees. “The Geneva convention is still valid which states that you have to take in refugees,” EU enlargement and regional policy commissioner Johannes Hahn said.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday that it estimated that up to 20,000 people have gathered at the Bab al-Salama crossing and another 5,000 to 10,000 people displaced to nearby Azaz city.

Turkey is already home to between two and 2.5 million Syrians who have fled their country’s brutal five-year conflict.

Aleppo province is one of the main strongholds of Syria’s Opposition, which is facing possibly its worst moment since the outbreak of war.

Riyadh on Thursday left open the possibility of deploying soldiers.