BAGHDAD — In a mass exodus, around 30,000 Syrians have fled their homeland's bloody civil war and crossed over into neighboring Iraq's northern self-ruled Kurdish region over the past five days, the UN refugee agency said Monday.
The massive influx of people, many of whom are Syrian Kurds seeking refuge from escalating violence in northeastern Syria, has put a severe strain on the resources of aid agencies as well as Iraqi Kurdistan's regional government.
AP
In this photo provided by UNHCR officials and taken on Thursday, Aug.15, 2013. Syrian refugees cross the border toward Iraq at Peshkabour border point at Dahuk, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, Iraq.
"Syrian refugees are still pouring into Iraq's northern Kurdish region in huge numbers and most of them are women and children. The reason behind this sudden flow is still not clear," said Youssef Mahmoud, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency in Iraq's Kurdish region.
"Today, some 3,000 Syrian refugees crossed the borders and that has brought the number to around 30,000 refugees since Thursday," he said, adding that the latest wave has brought the number of Syrian refugees in the Kurdish region to around 195,000.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has set up an emergency transit camp in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region, to house some of the new arrivals. Some of the refugees were reportedly staying in mosques or with family or friends who live in the area, according to the agency.
At one camp near Irbil, dozens of refugees carrying their bags, belongings and babies roamed through rows of tens, footage shot by AP Television News showed. Some men lined up to get blocks of ice from a pickup truck. Nearby, children huddled around a truck to get watermelon distributed by the regional security forces.
UNHCR said it is sending 15 truckloads of supplies — 3,100 tents, two pre-fabricated warehouses and thousands of jerry cans to carry water — from its regional stockpile in Jordan. It said the shipment is already on the way and should arrive by the end of the week.
Kurds are Syria's largest ethnic minority, making up more than 10 percent of the country's 23 million people. They are centered in the poor northeastern regions of Hassakeh and Qamishli, wedged between the borders of Turkey and Iraq. There are also several predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods in the capital, Damascus, and Syria's largest city, Aleppo.
Those Kurdish areas have been engulfed by fighting in recent months between Kurdish militias and Islamic extremist rebel factions with links to al-Qaida. Dozens have been killed on both sides. Following the assassination of a prominent Kurdish leader late last month, a powerful Kurdish militia said it was mobilizing to expel Islamic extremists.
Earlier this month, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, vowed to defend Syria's Kurds. He did not offer details on how he would do so, but Iraqi Kurdistan boasts a powerful and experienced armed force known as the peshmerga.
An armed intervention would carry enormous risks, and appears unlikely. Still, the pledge along with the fighting shows the potential of Syria's conflict to spread to neighboring countries and shift into a full-blown regional war.
The Kurdish-rebel rift is just one layer in Syria's increasingly complex and bloody civil war.
The conflict has killed more than 100,000 people, ripped apart the delicate sectarian fabric of Syrian society and destroyed the country's cities and towns. President Bashar Assad's regime has used warplanes, tanks and ballistic missiles to try to pound rebellious areas into submission.
The rebels, along with the US and other Western powers, say the Assad regime also has used chemical weapons in the conflict. The Syrian government and its ally, Russia, both blame the opposition for the alleged chemical attacks.
On Monday, a team of UN experts began their long-awaited investigation into the purported used of chemical arms in the conflict.
The UN team is tasked with determining whether chemical weapons have been used, and if so which ones. The mission's mandate does not extend to establishing who was responsible for an attack, which has led some observers to question the overall value of the probe.
The investigators are expected to visit three sites where chemical weapons attacks allegedly occurred: the village of Khan al-Assal, just west of the embattled northern city of Aleppo, and two other locations that have not been disclosed.
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