Refugees crowd border

Turkish humanitarian groups set up camps in Syria and sent in truckloads of aid yesterday for tens of thousands of people stranded on the border after fleeing a Russia-backed regime offensive on the northern region of Aleppo.

Turkey, which has long pushed for a safe zone on the border, has vowed to help an estimated 35,000 people amassed on the frontier, many of them women and children.

"Around 30,000 Syrians have now massed," the border with northwestern Syria which remains closed, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Ankara.

Turkey and Germany will ask Nato to help police the Turkish coast and stop traffickers from sending migrants on dangerous sea journeys, Merkel told the press conference.

"Turkey has reached the limit of its capacity to absorb the refugees," Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told CNN Turk television.

"But in the end, these people have nowhere else to go. Either they will die beneath the bombings... or we will open our borders," he said.

Aid agencies have warned of a desperate situation among the crowds queueing in the cold and rain at Bab al-Salama frontier post, which faces Turkey's Oncupinar crossing, and begun setting up camps on the Syrian side.

The Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, which is providing food for 20,000 refugees, said it had set up a new camp with a capacity of 10,000, in addition to eight it already operates near Bab al-Salama.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army advanced toward the Turkish border yesterday in a major offensive backed by Russia and Iran that rebels say now threatens the future of their nearly five-year-old insurrection against President Bashar al-Assad, reports Reuters.

"Our whole existence is now threatened, not just losing more ground," said Abdul Rahim al-Najdawi from Liwa al-Tawheed, an insurgent group. "They are advancing and we are pulling back because in the face of such heavy aerial bombing we must minimize our losses."

Speaking during a visit to Ankara yesterday, Merkel criticised Russia for bombings in Syria that have forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee, suggesting they were in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that Moscow signed in December.

"We must take another look at Resolution 2254 from December 18, the resolution of the UN Security Council that was supported by Russia," Merkel said.