Refugees fleeing as purge continues

SYRIA: About 1000 Syrian refugees have fled into Turkey in a single day as evidence of fresh massacres by the army emerged in Syria’s north.

Interior minister Besir Atalay said Turkey was considering establishing a buffer zone along its border after the exodus, although he gave no details about how that would operate and where it would be located.

Atalay’s remarks reflect the humanitarian emergency on the border, across which at least 14,700 Syrians have fled. The latest influx occurred on the first anniversary of the Syrian uprising, during which, the opposition says, 9113 people have been killed.

Almost a quarter of a million Syrians have fled their homes because of the violence, according to United Nations figures. The head of the Turkish Red Crescent warned that the figure could soar to half a million if President Bashar al-assad continues his bloody campaign to cling to power.

The Syrian opposition released gruesome video footage yesterday of 13 charred corpses of men and boys it said had been burnt to death by Assad’s forces in revenge for giving shelter to four army defectors. Images also showed Syrian Army soldiers looting abandoned houses in Homs.

Among the refugees was a defecting army general, the seventh senior officer to seek shelter in Turkey. The refugees were fleeing the latest Syrian Army offensive to retake Idlib, a northern town of 150,000 people that for months has been under the control of the Free Syrian Army.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that since the army took control, the bodies of 23 victims of extreme torture had been found near Idlib, just days after Amnesty International issued a report detailing the regime’s torture methods.

Reports said the 23 bodies found were blindfolded, handcuffed and shot dead. Another five people were killed in raids across the northern province by security forces.

Video footage released by another opposition group showed the charred bodies of 13 men and boys, aged between 15 and 60, who had allegedly been burnt to death for sheltering defectors in the village of Ain Laroz.

One refugee from Idlib told Human Rights Watch ( HRW) that he had gone into a building in the northwest of the city at the beginning of the assault to find three dead children, victims of a random mortar attack by the Army.

‘‘There was no reason for the army to attack this building. They just shot at everything. They are crazy,’’ the refugee said.

Another witness told HRW that hospitals quickly filled with the dead and wounded.

‘‘I would say that about half of the casualties were clearly civilians. There were women, children and elderly among them,’’ the man said.

The reports of massacres echoed those that emerged from the central city of Homs after its rebel district of Baba Amr was stormed two weeks ago, after a month-long artillery bombardment in which hundreds of people were killed.

Syrian state TV broadcast footage of pro-assad rallies in Damascus, where thousands of regime supporters waved flags and carried portraits of the president.

Numerous Russian flags were also waved in gratitude for Moscow’s veto of a UN resolution condemning the regime.