Syria attacks stir humanitarian response as thousands flee

He said NATO’s 28 member countries “see the need to manage and to tackle the human tragedy”, and the problems associated with it.

According to the newspaper, the two leaders had an agreement to urge joint efforts to secure North Atlantic Treaty Organisation involvement in curbing the refugee flow to Europe.

“Seven injured were taken to Turkey on Friday and one on Saturday for treatment at Turkish hospitals”, he said.

While tens of thousands of people fleeing the fierce fighting of a Russian-backed regime offensive in Syria huddled in makeshift camps and hoped to get across the border into Turkey, just a handful were lucky enough to make the crossing.

When asked about the state of media freedoms in Turkey, Merkel said she talked about hard issues with Davutoğlu including the freedom of press in Turkey and the Kurdish peace process.

Hussein Bakri, an official in the interim government set up by the Syrian opposition, said more than 70,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo and urged the worldwide community to “shoulder the responsibility of protecting the Syrian people by stopping the Russian bombing”.

If government advances around the city continue, it said, “local councils in the city estimate that some 100,000 to 150,000 civilians may flee”.

“If they cut the road out they will take the city”.

Turkey will admit the 30,000 people fleeing war-torn Syria who have amassed at the border “when necessary”, Davutoğlu said, adding Russia’s air assaults should not be tolerated based on the idea that Turkey will accept the refugees. The governor of the Turkish border province of Kilis said Saturday that Turkey would provide aid to the displaced within Syria, but would only open the gates in the event of an “extraordinary crisis”. The border gate between Syria and Turkey was closed on Friday and no refugees were admitted, prompting human rights group Amnesty International to call on Turkey to allow those massed at the border to cross over. “Either they will die beneath the bombings and Turkey will… watch the massacre like the rest of the world, or we will open our borders”.

Turkey, already home to 2.5 million Syrian refugees, insists it has an open-door policy toward Syrians escaping conflict but has still kept the key Bab al-Salameh border crossing closed for days.

Abu Shakra said he has briefly crossed to Turkey for talks leaving his Free Syrian Army fighters defending Aleppo on two or three fronts.

“It is also under pressure to stop their perilous onward journeys to Europe and to prevent radical militants from sneaking over what was long a porous border to carry out attacks in Turkey or overseas”, it said. He put the number of refugees being cared for on the other side of the border at 30,000.

Merkel looks increasingly isolated at home and in Europe, after the Assad regime intensified fighting in Syria backed by Russian air strikes.

Turkey has been using the new influx of refugees against Russian Federation, whom they blame as the cause.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said as many as 50,000 people had reached the border, trying to escape intense Russian bombings around Aleppo.

In an exclusive interview conducted in Turkey, he predicted a “massacre” in Aleppo and a surge in refugees heading towards Turkey.

Turkey has since started to require Syrians arriving from third countries to apply for visas, in a bid to exclude those who aim to continue on to Greece. Other plans include increasing coast guards’ capabilities and designating human smuggling as a form of organized crime – which would result in stricter punishments.