Fleeing through the eye of a needle – Correspondent

Correspondent

via Correspondent: http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post/turkey-refugees-islamic-state-kurds-border-desperate-flight-from-syria#.VX7tbGCqyn0

We have been on the Turkey-Syria border for nearly a week now, within sight of the Syrian town of Tal Abyad where Kurdish forces are battling Islamic State jihadists for control. Thousands have fled the fighting, hoping to join the 1.8 milllion Syrian refugees already in Turkey, 13,500 of them from Tal Abyad, but in recent days Ankara had been holding the border shut fearing a new mass influx of people.