Over 2,400 Syrian refugees cross Turkey's border

Xinhua, June 10, 2011

The number of refugees who have left the violence-shadowed northern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour to neighboring Turkey has acceded 2,400, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday.

"We have serious concerns about the situation in Syria. Half an hour ago I received exact numbers. More than 2,400 people have now come to Turkey as refugees," the semi-official Anatolia news agency quoted Davutoglu as saying at Libyan Contact Group meeting in Abu Dhabi.

He said it was time for Syria to act "more decisively on political reforms." Davutoglu said that Turkey called Bashar al-Assad to calm down the tension, adding that the people that had died in the clashes "are also our brothers".

Talks are going on to solve situation in Syria, he added.

The people took shelter in south Turkey's border province of Hatay and the number of refugees in the tent city set up by the Turkish Red Crescent in Yayladagi town of Hatay next to Syrian border. Turkey and Syria share a border of 800 km.

The arrivals have sharply increased since Tuesday, after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that Turkey will not "close its doors" to Syrians fleeing from unrest in their country, urging Damascus to "change its attitude towards civilians" and "take its attitude to a more tolerant level as soon as possible."

Syria has been in unrest for more than two months after the anti-government demonstrations started in the southern province of Daraa. The protests have spread to several other Syrian cities, leading to deaths of both protesters and policemen.