Thousands of Syrians have fled the historic town of Maarat al-Numaan to escape troops and tanks pushing into the north in a widening military campaign to crush protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In Turkey, which has been receiving thousands of Syrian refugees escaping military assaults, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan held talks on Wednesday with an envoy of Assad as Ankara pressed its southern neighbor to end military attacks in Syrian cities and towns that it has called “savagery.”
Residents said an armored column had reached the village of Mantas, 15km to the east of Maarat al-Numaan, while another column was 20km west at the village of al-Khwein. Troops also continued to be airlifted by helicopter to a staging camp 2km from the town, residents said.
“The troops are firing randomly at the outskirts of al-Maarat al-Numaan to scare the population, which drove more people to flee tonight,” one witness in the village of Maarshamsha on the edge of Maarat al-Numaan said by telephone.
In the conservative Damascus suburb of Harasta, security forces fired live ammunition to disperse a night protest by 200 women demanding the release of their husbands and relatives, arrested in an intensifying security sweep to put down the three-month uprising, a witness said.
Turkish officials said 8,500 Syrians, many from Jisr al-Shughour, had sought sanctuary in Turkey, which has set up four refugee camps across the border.
Refugees said there had been no mass movement back and another 10,000 were sheltering inside Syria close to the border.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who speaks Arabic, went to the border and talked to refugees, including wounded men lying on beds in camp hospitals.
“I’ll talk to [Assad’s envoy] and will share with him with all frankness what I saw. We are seeing a humanitarian situation here and developments are concerning,” Davutoglu told reporters after visiting a camp in Yayladagi, across from the town of Jisr al-Shughour.
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