Thousands of Syrians cut through a border fence and
crossed over into Turkey on Sunday, fleeing intense fighting in northern
Syria between Kurdish fighters and ISIS militants around the town of
Tal Abyad. As Syrian Kurdish fighters closed in on the outskirts of the
town, residents fled to the Turkish border by the thousands, but were
stopped by barbed wire fences, trenches, and Turkish security forces
firing warning shots and using water cannons to keep them back. At one
point over the weekend, ISIS militants appeared to come between the
refugees and the border fence on the Syrian side, urging them to return
to the city center—under the watch of Turkish soldiers on the other side
of the fence. The following day, a rush of desperate refugees returned,
breaking through the border fences and pouring across into Turkey,
where authorities were accommodating them. Despite recent attempts by
the Turkish government to limit the flow of Syrian refugees, they agreed
to re-open the border on Sunday, anticipating another 10,000 refugees.
