Around 35000 Syrians have arrived at Turkish border in 48 hours: governor

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reaffirmed Saturday his country would keep its “open border policy” for Syrian refugees, saying as many as 55,000 people fleeing a new regime offensive were heading toward the frontier.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a donors’ conference in London Thursday that some 10,000 Syrians were at the border, and as many as 70,000 others were on the way.

Syrian army offensives have recently choked up militant supply lines from Turkey, a longtime supporter of Takfiri terror groups fighting to topple the government.

The U.N. estimated that almost 40,000 newly displaced people have massed in recent days in several border areas of northern Syria, including about 20,000 near the Bab al-Salam border crossing.

Internally displaced Syrians queue to receive blankets near the Bab al-Salam crossing, across from Turkey’s Kilis province, on the outskirts of the northern border town of Azaz, Syria February 6, 2016.

“I look at these images of people standing at the Turkish border and I just wanted to underline the message people who are in humanitarian need should be allowed in”, he said.

Officials in Turkey have said they’re prepared to feed and shelter the refugees but have not said when they might be able to enter the country.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier-General Mohsen Ghajarian has been killed in Aleppo province, as had six Iranian volunteer militiamen.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britian-based monitoring group, said on Friday that regime troops had retaken a town at the doorstep of Daraa, the contested city between Damascus and the Jordanian border which held some of the first protests against Mr Assad in early 2011. The regime’s attack around Aleppo ruined the peace talks now held in Geneva between the regime and the opposition since the regime backed by Russian Federation is trying to achieve gains on the ground.

Analysts said rebels and their worldwide backers were left with few options to prevent fresh government advances, which came as fresh peace talks backed by the United Nations fell apart.

OCHA spokeswoman Linda Tom said the fighting had disrupted major aid supply routes from the Turkish border.

The battles prompted tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, a lot of them to escape intense airstrikes that have reduced entire villages to rubble, according to rebel fighters and activists in the area.

Mr Kerry travels to Munich next week for talks with Russia, Iran and other parties involved in the five-year Syrian conflict. But still there are many civilians there. “Now the northern countryside (of Aleppo province) is totally encircled, and the humanitarian situation is very hard”.

Instead, preparations are being made to grant them asylum in the event of an “extraordinary crisis” – and for now, they are being accommodated at camps for displaced people.

Russian air strikes, which started in September, initially shored up Mr Assad’s north-western heartlands and then ground down rebel forces on three fronts across the country.

With Greece unable to control the influx, some European Union nations are now looking to help Macedonia – which is not in the European Union – stop them at its southern border before they reach the Schengen zone of border-free travel.

Once Syria’s thriving commercial center, Aleppo has been divided since 2012 between government- and rebel-controlled districts.

A Syrian man who fled bombing in Aleppo carries equipment to set up a tent.

The breakdown of the talks was followed by a warning from opposition backer Saudi Arabia that it is ready, in principle, to send ground troops to Syria, albeit in the context of the U.S.-led military campaign against Islamic State extremists who control large areas of Syria and Iraq.