Since violence erupted in the northwestern province of Idlib this month, thousands found shelter in shabby tent cities scattered throughout the rugged frontier. In recent weeks, many refugees came to think of the densely forested valley around Khirbet al-Jouz as a safe zone beyond the reach of the Syrian State as security forces remained mysteriously absent.
Those hopes were dashed in the early hours of Thursday, when many refugees said they were awakened by the sound of shots and the noise of distant army vehicles entering the city centre, located in the extreme of a mountain campsite.
"They surrounded us; They took the city and are in the mountains, "said Jamil Saeb, a leading activist and refugees who fled to Khirbet al-Jouz since the town of Jisr al-Shoughour. He fled to Turkey, after hearing rumors that a disguised killing Squad entered the camp and was searching for it through the olive groves and apple orchards.
"Almost all the refugees are going to Turkey," he said, adding that he planned to Syria Back to as soon as possible to continue his work ativisto.
Turkish Red Crescent officials, including President Tekin Kucukali, came to Guvecci on Thursday. "There has been movement today on the Syrian side, and we respond immediately," he told reporters. More than 10,000 Syrian refugees now living in a sequence of fields in Turkey administered by the organization. Mr. Kucukali said that by midday Thursday, more than 600 more refugees had entered Turkey.
Refugees who enter through the official crossing in Guvecci were transported to a camp of the Red Crescent in a convoy of 23 bus seen accelerating an asphalt road that divides the two countries. Mr. Kucukali estimated that were expecting more than 17,000 refugees at the borders.
Syrian forces took up a position in the village of Zeyniya on Wednesday night before advancing in Khirbet al-Jouz, in the early hours of Thursday, according to the leaders of the refugees. They entered with soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles, said a resident of al-Jouz of Khirbet called Fayez, who took the video images of the army's entry into the city as he fled. Its video shows a tank idling on the street in front of a building and men dressed in black, going door-to-door. Fayez, like many others who spoke with reporters, asked that only his first name be used because he feared for the safety of yourself and your family.
He said the army, composed of recruits and seen as more prone to defection of other security agencies, entered the city first followed by intelligence agencies forces and members of a paramilitary force, called the disguised shabiha, "shot guns at random."
Mohamed, 27, said he woke up in his forest campsite at 6 a.m. for the "echo of bullets" and ran with his video camera to an observation tower overlooking the Valley. Last week, young men hoisted a Turkish flag Tower and used to keep a lookout for the army. But on Thursday, Syrian snipers took up positions in the Tower, Mohamed said and raised the flag of Syria once more.
Mohamed said that activists in the field decided to leave when they saw the sniper nest on a hill, and also when rumor spread of a death squad in camp. A Khirbet al-Jouz residents, Mohamed Abdelwahab, 32, said they have seen undercover intelligence officers move down the slope, using the forest as cover.
Mr. Kucukali said that a similar pattern of troop movements and refugee flows was playing elsewhere along the border also Syria-Turkey. He would not be more specific, calling it "a security issue."
Ziyad Taher, 26, a refugee from Latakia who fled to Turkey on Thursday, said he saw a "elsewhere on the border where the troops are much closer to" as he fled through the forest North of Khirbet al-Jouz with your friends.
To the South, the mountain village of Ain al-Baida, whose population has tripled in recent weeks as refugees flooded from the nearby city of Badama, also was surrounded by soldiers and tanks, said Jumaa Ahmed, 24, a resident reached by telephone.
He said that people were afraid that they would not be in Turkey because the city has no official border and is separated from its neighbour by a ragged peak and a razor wire length.
"People are very frightened children are very scared," he said. "A lot of people want to go to Turkey but they don't unless the army approaches".
But Mr. Jumaa, a revolutionary self-professed in Ain al-Baida who said he had taught their young nieces and nephews of antigovernment chants while never had there been any protests there, vowed to stay no matter what.
"I will stay here until they kill me or take me away," he said. "There is no life without my house or my village. This is my place. I won't let my house to be taken by the House of Assad. "
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