Amnesty’s Global Issues Director Sherif Elsayed-Ali said Turkey “must not close its doors to people in desperate need of safety”.
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Syrians who have managed to cross into Turkey, often by bribing Turkish border guards by paying $1,200 a person or paying people smugglers, say their journey was an ever-more-frightening trek with airstrikes following them from town to town.
In Amsterdam, EU Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn publicly reminded Turkey of its obligations under the Geneva Convention to keep its frontier open along its southern border with Syria and “take in refugees”.
Farhan Haq said they were mainly from sub-districts of Aleppo, which has been the target of a government offensive and Russian airstrikes against rebel forces that started on Monday.
The Syrian Observatory, a Britain-based monitor that relies on a network of sources on the ground, estimates that 40,000 people have fled the regime offensive near Aleppo.
“And because the main rebel supply route between Aleppo and Turkey has been cut, the price of oil, foodstuffs and baby milk has shot up in the north of Aleppo province”, he added.
Tens of thousands of civilians have joined an exodus to escape fierce fighting involving government forces who severed the rebels main supply route into Syria s second city.
Government forces concentrated in Damascus and the centre and west of Syria are fighting the jihadists of Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, as well as less numerous so-called “moderate” rebel groups, which are strongest in the north and east. These groups are also battling each other.
Tapsiz said another 70,000 Syrians could arrive at the border if the Russian and Syrian strikes don’t end.
Iran has been a key ally of Syria’s throughout the five-year uprising.
“Any ground intervention on Syrian territory without government authorisation would amount to an aggression that must be resisted”, he said.
In the south, regime forces aided by Russian warplanes and Iran-backed militias captured the strategic town of Ataman, considered the gateway to the city of Daraa, according to the Syrian military and opposition activists.
“I don’t think they would dare do that…”
In a televised speech Friday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised that Turkey would not leave the displaced “without food or shelter” but did not say whether the country meant to let them in.
Turkey last faced such an influx in 2014 when 200,000 refugees fled the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane over three days as IS and Kurdish fighters battled to control it.
The border gate between Syria and Turkey was closed on Friday and no refugees were admitted, prompting human rights group Amnesty International to call on Turkey to allow those massed at the border to cross over.
A Red Cross spokesman told AFP that efforts were under way to deliver aid to northern Aleppo but warned that “access is difficult”.
Once Syria’s thriving commercial center, Aleppo has been divided since 2012 between government- and rebel-controlled districts. He said Moscow hopes others in the 17-nation group will “shoulder responsibility” in restarting the talks.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russian Federation of using imprecise “dumb bombs” that have killed large numbers of civilians.
On Saturday, the powerful Ahrar al-Sham rebel group said it was pulling out of the Geneva talks in protest at the regime’s Aleppo offensive.
De Mistura said he would resume the talks if there is a chance to make progress, but only if that is the case.
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More than 260,000 people have died in Syria s conflict and more than half the population has been displaced.
