Syrian Refugees Flood Into Turkey

By MARC CHAMPION, AYLA ALBAYRAK and NOUR MALAS

ISTANBUL—Syrian refugees streamed into Turkey on Monday, fleeing a crackdown in the country’s north, as Turkey’s foreign ministry convened a high-level meeting on its neighbor with members of Turkey’s intelligences service.

The Syrian military, meanwhile, said it had retaken control the town of Jisr al-Shoghour, where 120 soldiers were killed last week in an apparent mutiny.

On Monday, as the number of Syrians who have fled across the border reached close to 7,000 since last week, according to Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu Ajansi, the Turkish government dismissed media reports that Turkey was planning to create a military buffer zone just inside Syria.

“There are no such plans yet,” said Ibrahim Kalin, foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “If the number [of refugees] really goes up, then we are prepared for everything, but we have no plans to create a buffer zone.”

The Turkish foreign ministry meeting on Syria, which also included its ambassadors to Damascus and Beirut, was reported by Anadolu Ajansi.

Unrest in Syria

Despite the rising death toll from weeks of unrest, people across Syria continue to protest the government of President Bashar al-Assad. See events by day.

Turkey has been one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s strongest supporters, but appeared to lose patience as Syrian forces triggered a refugee crisis on Turkey’s border in the lead-up to elections on Sunday, which Mr. Erdogan’s party won.

Hundreds of Syrians huddled under trees and makeshift camps in harsh rain and wind on Monday evening, said Mohammed Abdelwahab, a resident of Jisr al-Shoghour who is helping drive families from neighboring villages to the border. “We’re afraid the security forces will attack us at the border any minute,” he said. He estimated there were as many as 15,000 Syrians now waiting in makeshift camps at the Syrian side of the border.

“It poured rain and got chilly and it became a problem—the women were trying to take care of crying children, the men trying to get food,” said Mr. Abdelwahab. He said snipers patrolled villages near the border from which families were fleeing, with one man who went to get bread for the refugees suspected detained or killed.

People at the border said the flow of mini-bus traffic crossing into Turkey increased Sunday night, as thunderstorms set in and Syrian forces swept villages in the border area, although there was no sense of chaos.

In apparent anticipation of more refugees, workers of the Turkish Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross, began building a fourth tent camp Monday near the border, the Associated Press reported

Syria on Monday said the army “restored peace and safety” to Jisr al-Shughour after a military operation hunted down what the government said were terrorist gangs, and discovered a mass grave of 12 bodies of security force members. Two gunmen were killed and many others arrested in clashes on Sunday, the state news agency said.

Residents of Jisr al-Shughour on Sunday said some 160 tanks shelled the town for most of the day as an attack helicopter sprayed machine gun fire. The town had emptied out of most residents in the days leading to Sunday as it braced for the military attack.

Local residents and government opponents say the deaths of the 120 soldiers last week were caused not by terrorists, as the government claims, but by other government forces when the soldiers mutinied.

Write to Marc Champion at [email protected] and Nour Malas at [email protected]

via Syrian Refugees Flood Into Turkey – WSJ.com.