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More than 7,300 Syrians fled Kobane to Iraq since late September: UN

Arab World Materials 16 October 2014 14:32 (UTC +04:00)
The arrival of nearly 1,500 refugees from Kobane in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on Tuesday brought the total number of people to flee the northern Syrian town to Iraq to 7,318 since late September
More than 7,300 Syrians fled Kobane to Iraq since late September: UN

The arrival of nearly 1,500 refugees from Kobane in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on Tuesday brought the total number of people to flee the northern Syrian town to Iraq to 7,318 since late September, a UN spokesman said here Wednesday, Xinhua reported.

"Since 25 September, 7,318 people have arrived," Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, said at a daily news briefing here. "The majority of these refugees are traveling through Turkey, where there are now about 200,000 Syrian refugees from Kobane."

"United Nations and non-governmental partners are assisting the new arrivals at the Ibrahim Khalil border before they are transferred by International Organization for Migration to the Arbat refugee camp in Sulaymaniyah Governorate," he said.

Until Tuesday, arrivals were transferred to the Gawilan refugee camp in Dohuk, which is now full with 5,400 refugees, he said. " The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 people might cross into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq from Kobane in the coming days."

Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other top UN officials voiced their grave concern for the safety of civilians caught up in the ongoing offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on the northern Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ayn al-Arab.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) expressed its alarm over the situation, noting that the reported intensification of indiscriminate shelling by ISIL of various parts of the town of Kobane has caused 10,000 civilians who had remained in the border area to cross into Turkey about one week ago.

On Oct. 6, ISIL units reportedly broke through the trenches dug by the town's mainly Kurdish defenders, and street-to-street fighting then took place in eastern neighborhoods of the town. They also took control of a number of buildings and a strategic hill looking over the town from the southeast.
The Kurdish groups in control of Kobane had reportedly ordered civilians to seek refuge in Turkey, and civilian administrators in Kobane were also said to have mostly left the town by Oct. 6 evening.

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