BEIRUT, AP, 5 February 2016 – The United Nations estimates that up to 20,000 people displaced by military operations around Aleppo have gathered at the Bab al-Salam border crossing with Turkey.
The deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Farhan Haq, told reporters Friday that another 5,000 to 10,000 people have been displaced to Azaz city and 10,000 have been displaced to Afrin.
Haq says the thousands of people are mainly from the Aleppo sub-districts of Tel Rifaat, Hariyatan and Azaz.
The U.N. says the fighting has disrupted major aid routes from the Turkish border. “Ongoing conflict is making access to populations in need increasingly difficult,” Haq said.
Turkey’s prime minister says some 15,000 Syrians fleeing Syrian and Russian bombings of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, have reached Turkey’s borders, adding that tens of thousands more could also be on the way.
In a televised speech Friday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised that Turkey would not leave the displaced “without food or shelter”.
A Turkish charity says about 50,000 people fleeing intense fighting in northern Syria have arrived at a Syrian-Turkish border crossing.
Serkan Nergis of the Islamic charity IHH says displaced Syrians began streaming toward the Bab al-Salam border crossing Thursday.
Nergis said Friday that the group is setting up tent camps in Syria near the crossing to provide temporary shelter. The charity runs about 10 camps for displaced Syrians along the frontier.
Iran’s supreme leader says Iranian forces must fight Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq to prevent the militant organization spreading to Iran.
Ali Khamenei’s comments, which were reported by Tasnim news agency Friday, closely followed the announced death of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander in Syria.
Several Iranian troops, including high-ranking officers, have been killed in Syria.
NATO’s secretary general says that Russian airstrikes in Syria that mainly target opposition forces are “undermining efforts to find a political solution to the conflict.”
Jens Stoltenberg says that increased Russian air force activity in Syria also is leading to increased violations of Turkish airspace.
Stoltenberg said Friday that “this creates risks, heightened tensions and is of course a challenge for NATO because they’re violations of NATO’s airspace.”
He was speaking on the sidelines of an informal meeting of European Union defense ministers in Amsterdam.
Turkey has taken in more than 2.5 million Syrians since the civil war began in 2011.
UN estimates that up to 20,000 people have gathered at the Bab al-Salam border crossing with Turkey.
