In Syria, mortars kill 21 in Damascus refugee camp

Mortars rained down on a crowded marketplace in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital, killing 21 people as regime forces and rebels clashed on the southern outskirts of Damascus, activists said today.

The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights, which reported the deaths, said the shells hit Yarmouk camp Thursday as shoppers were buying food for the evening meal. The activists would not speculate on who was firing.

"We don’t know where the mortars came from, whether they were from the Syrian regime or not the Syrian regime," said Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the Observatory. He added they could also have been strays from the fighting in nearby Tadamon neighborhood.

The state news agency blamed the bombardment on "terrorist mercenaries" - a term the government uses for rebel fighters - and said they had been chased away by security forces.

Government troops, however, have in the past attacked the camp, home to nearly 150,000 Palestinians and their descendants driven from their homes by the war surrounding Israel’s 1948 creation. Palestinian refugees in Syria have tried to stay out of the 17-month old uprising but with Yarmouk nestled among neighborhoods sympathetic to the rebels, its residents were eventually drawn into the fighting.

Yarmouk’s younger inhabitants have also been moved by the Arab Spring’s calls for greater freedoms and have joined protests against President Bashar Assad’s regime- and have died during demonstrations when Syrian troops fired on them.

With the civil war in Syria getting increasingly vicious, chances for a diplomatic solution to the conflict were fading after the resignation Thursday of Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria. Annan cited divisions within the Security Council preventing a united approach to stop the fighting.

The U.N. General Assembly was preparing to vote Friday on a new Arab-sponsored resolution condemning Syria’s use of heavy weapons to crush the uprising that has killed an estimated 19,000 people since it began on March 2011.

The resolution - which like all General Assembly resolutions is unenforceable - is expected to denounce Syria for unleashing tanks, artillery, helicopters and warplanes on the people of Aleppo and Damascus, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control.

The attack on the Palestinian camp came as clashes raged overnight between rebels and government forces in the nearby Damascus suburb of Tadamon, which was also bombed by army Thursday, sending plumes of black smoke over the city.

The Observatory also reported shelling of the southwestern suburb of Jdaidat Artouz, where dozens of bodies were found after government forces swept through on Wednesday.

Syria’s civil war, which had raged across much of the country, came to the capital and northeastern city of Aleppo, Syria’s main commercial hub in July.

A rebel assault and revolt in Damascus two weeks ago was vigorously crushed by government forces, but pockets of resistance and sympathetic neighborhoods remain. Sporadic clashes and shelling also continue in Aleppo, especially the rebel bastion of Salaheddine as rebels and government forces hold different parts of that city. On Thursday, the rebels even deployed a captured tank against the regime and briefly shelled an air force base outside Aleppo.

The U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous warned of a major government assault on Aleppo in the coming days to retake the rebel held neighborhoods.

"The focus is now on Aleppo, where there has been a considerable build-up of military means, and where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start," he told reporters in New York late Thursday after briefing the Security Council on his trip to Syria.

Syrian general among 1,000 refugees fleeing to Turkey

About 1,000 Syrians, including a defecting brigadier-general, have fled to Turkey in the past 24 hours to escape intensifying violence in their country, a Turkish official said on Friday.

The latest group brought the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey to 45,500, up from 44,000 at the end of July, said the official, who asked not to be named. At least 25 military generals are among those who have taken refuge in Turkey.

A 17-month-old uprising in Syria has created a refugee crisis in Turkey and other neighbouring countries.

Opposition sources say at least 18,000 people have been killed since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

Turkish officials are concerned about a possible flood of refugees from Syria's biggest city of Aleppo as Assad's forces use warplanes and artillery to pound rebel fighters there.

Turkey’s door open to Syrians despite unrest

Turkey will continue to accept Syrians who flee from the violence in their country, despite the recent riots in the camps, where Syrians clash with Turkish officials and police for various reasons such as lack of food

Syrian refugees walk out the container city in Kilis at the border with Syria after clashing with police during a demonstration. AFP photo

 Turkey will maintain its open-door policy for Syrian refugees, despite the riots that have recently broken out at refugee camps, a Turkish official told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday. The official added that the government was working to open new camps to shelter the increasing number of Syrian dissents fleeing into Turkey.

A total of 17 Syrians were arrested in Gaziantep’s İslahiye district after they had allegedly flown a Syrian flag in front of the camp where they are staying, and four Syrian refugees and four members of the Turkish security forces were injured on July 22 when riots broke out at a refugee camp near the town of Islahiye following the arrival of a group of 1,500 ethnic Turkmen refugees from Syria at the camp.

“The Turkish flag wasn’t lowered, but the Syrian flag was displayed at the entrance of the camp where the incidents occurred on July 22,” Islahiye District Governor Osman Beyazyıldız told reporters yesterday. “All possible security precautions have been taken. The 17 Syrians who led the incidents have been detained. Similar cases took place at the Hatay and Kilis camps.”

Protests for lack of food

Turkish police fired tear gas at stone-throwing Syrian refugees who were protesting a lack of food and water at camps along the border with their conflict-ravaged homeland. Following the incidents, security measures were increased, with police and armored vehicles patrolling around the camp.

The U.N. Refugee Agency was not managing the camps and was not present during the reported incident, Metin Çorabatır, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Turkey office told the Daily News yesterday. Under international law and standards, rights and responsibilities exist for those seeking protection, as well as for the host state, Çorabatır said, referring to the incidents at the refugee camps. “It is the responsibility of the host state to maintain law and order and to ensure access to protection, which we understand is still taking place,” Çorabatır said. The UNHCR also remains available to provide technical advice and expertise as needed.

Syrians revolt, fly own flag at refugee camp in Turkey

Syrian refugees started a riot in a Gaziantep refugee camp today, taking down the Turkish flag and replacing it with their own, Doğan news agency reported.

Syrian refugees at the site began protesting about the 1,500 Turkmen refugees that had been added to the camp, precipitating a verbal argument with security officials. The row soon escalated into a riot as hundreds of Syrians took Turkish police officers hostage and seized their guns. The Turkish flag at the entrance was taken down and refugees replaced it with their own.

Syrian refugees also heavily damaged the central building nearby while destroying computers and crime-scene vehicles on the scene. Local authorities immediately asked for back up.

Special forces soon arrived and entered the camp, dispersing the rioters. Turkish citizens also tried to intervene but were prevented from doing so by security officials.

Turkish citizens quickly took down the Syrian opposition flag, replacing it with the original Turkish one.

Syrian refugees in Turkey riot over lack of water

Four Turkish police officers and 10 Syrian refugees were injured after a riot broke out at a refugee camp in the southeastern province of Kilis.

Around 500 Syrian refugees staying at a camp near the Öncüpınar border gate staged a protest on the grounds that they were not receiving enough water, broadcaster NTV reported on its website today.

The group hurled stones at police and set garbage containers on fire after police demanded that they end the protest. Reinforcements were sent from the Kilis Police Department and gendarmerie forces, who intervened against the protesters with tear gas. Ten protesters who were affected by the gas were taken to hospital.

The garbage containers set alight by the protesters were put out by firefighters as police took control of the camp.

Israel aiding Syria refugees on Turkish, Jordan borders

A Syrian refugee boy flashes a victory sign as he looks out from behind the fence at Yayladagi refugee camp in Hatay province near the Turkish-Syrian border July 9, 2012.

Israeli aid groups are working with Western organizations to provide humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees in Turkey and Jordan, MP Ayoob Kara told AFP on Thursday.

"We have found a way, with voluntary organisations from Israel that are now on the borders of Jordan and Turkey with Syria, to provide humanitarian help to the Syrians who are there," Kara said.

"My advisors are also in Jordan to try to find a way to help the refugees in Jordan," he added, saying that Israeli volunteer groups had been working in Turkey and Jordan for the past two months.

Kara stressed that the aid was humanitarian, with Israeli groups providing "food, medicine, a lot of help." And he said the organisations involved were non-governmental groups working under the auspices of European institutions to assist Syrian refugees in the border areas.

"This is not the government, it's volunteers," he said, declining to identify the groups involved.

"They are Israelis but they don't work there as Israelis, they work with the European groups there." Kara said the Israeli government was wary of being seen to aid the opposition groups fighting to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose country is a sworn enemy of Israel.

"If we are part of the conflict, it's a danger for all the region, all the world," he said.

But Kara said he was eager to see the Jewish state provide humanitarian assistance, where possible.

"It is important for us that when there are big problems in our neighbour states, we are helping," he said.

Kara, a member of Israel's Druze minority who belongs to the rightwing Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the governments of Jordan and Turkey "know about the work of the Israeli organizations." And the deputy said he was working with Jordan and the Israeli government on the possibility of bringing wounded Syrian refugees to the Jewish state for treatment.

North Korea executes four returned refugees: activist

North Korea has publicly executed four refugees who were repatriated by China and sent 40 others to its notorious prison camps, a South Korean activist said today.

China has repatriated 44 fugitives from its communist neighbour in recent months, said Kim Heung-Kwang, who heads NK Intellectuals Solidarity, a Seoul-based defectors' group.

Four of them were executed and 40 sent to camps for political prisoners, he told a seminar. South Korean rights groups say there are six political prison camps in the North holding around 200,000 detainees.

Kim said he had obtained his information from a source inside the North, but gave no details. The South's unification ministry, which is in charge of cross-border affairs, declined to comment.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans looking to escape hunger or repression in their communist homeland have fled in recent years. Virtually all cross the border to China, which repatriates those fugitives it catches.

Beijing says they are economic migrants rather than refugees, a policy criticised by international rights groups.

The refugees often travel on from China to southeast Asian countries, hoping to fly from there to South Korea. Last week 19 refugees were arrested in Thailand on charges of illegal entry.