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 The assault around Aleppo, which aid workers have said could soon
fall to government forces, helped to torpedo Syrian peace talks in
Geneva this week. Russia's intervention has tipped the war President
Bashar al-Assad's way, reversing gains the rebels made last year.
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Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the civil war erupted five years
ago, would be a huge strategic prize for Assad's government in a
conflict that has killed at least 250,000 people and driven 11
million from their homes.
Advances by the Syrian army and allied militias, including Iranian
fighters, threaten to besiege opposition-held areas of the divided
city. Government-controlled parts of Aleppo are home to more than a
million people, while around 350,000 live in opposition-held areas.
On Saturday about 15,000 Syrians were waiting on the Syrian side of
Turkey's Oncupinar border crossing and up to 50,000 more were on
their way, an official with the Turkish disaster agency AFAD told
Reuters.
 "At the moment there isn't an emergency situation in terms of
security where the crowd is waiting. The first priority for them was
to be in a secure place and the other (Syrian) side of the border is
secure," the AFAD official said.
"Food and aid is being distributed. For now there isn't an imminent
risk to their lives."
Oncupinar has been officially shut for nearly a year due to security
concerns and remained closed on Saturday, but it is opened from time
to time to allow refugees into Turkey, which has already taken in
some 2.5 million Syrians.
A Reuters reporter at Oncupinar could hear infrequent shelling and
witnessed a few Turkish ambulances cross the border at one point.
"THEY ARE BOMBING SYRIANS ALL THE TIME"
Dozens of Syrian refugees already in Turkey queued up on the Turkish
side at Oncupinar to beg the authorities to allow in their relatives
fleeing the latest bombardments in Syria.
Sitting in his car with his four children just inside Turkey, Ahmet
Sadul, 43, was hoping to get back into Syria to look for his
relatives. A native of Azaz, over the border in Syria, he now lives
in the nearby Turkish town of Kilis.
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"Now there are thousands of people from Azaz all waiting on the
other side. They escaped from the Russians. I want to go and get my
relatives. They are bombing Syrians all the time."
"Many people have left Aleppo. But still there are many civilians
there. If Russia is successful, we are all dead."
Russia denies targeting civilians and says its actions are aimed at
shoring up Syria's legitimate government and combating terrorism.
The West and Turkey, which want Assad to step down, accuse Moscow of
using indiscriminate force in the conflict.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said
Kurdish and Syrian rebel factions in the countryside north of Aleppo
had agreed to open a humanitarian corridor from Azaz into
Kurdish-controlled Afrin for those fleeing the bombing but unable to
cross into Turkey.
The United Nations said up to 10,000 people had been displaced to
Azaz from areas under attack north of Aleppo and that 10,000 had
been displaced to Afrin, where there are plans to expand an existing
camp for internally displaced persons.
But the fighting is making access to populations in need
"increasingly difficult", a U.N. official said.
Abdulkerim Hannura, a 32-year-old customs police officer who works
on the Syrian side of the border, said Russian warplanes had been
bombing Syrian villages for 15 days.
"People are coming to the border and want to cross into Syria with
the hope that they can sneak their relatives back into Turkey," he
said.
(Writing by David Dolan and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Gareth
Jones)
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