According to the UN statistics, more than 23,000 refugees have fled across the border into Turkey’s Sanliurfa province since early June, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on 16 June. According to Turkish authorities, some 70 percent of these refugees were women and children.
“Since June 3, when the latest fighting erupted, people have been allowed across the border between Turkey and Syria at the Akcakale crossing and at several points between Sanliurfa and Syria’s Raqqa province,” a UNHCR spokesperson told reporters in Geneva. Most of the refugees are Syrians escaping fighting at the border town of Tel Abyad, and also include more than 2,000 Iraqis from the cities of Mosul, Ramadi and Falujjah.