18 Jun 2011

Britons urged to leave Syria as troops ‘storm’ border town

The Government has urged Britons to leave Syria while they still can. Eyewitnesses in the troubled country say troops have stormed a town near the Turkish border in a bid to crush the revolt.

The Foreign Office has updated its travel advice to say Britons “should leave Syria now by commercial means whilst these are still operating.”

A spokesman said: “Those who choose to remain in Syria or to visit against our advice should be aware that it is highly unlikely that the British Embassy in Damascus would be able to provide a normal consular service in the event of a further breakdown in law and order and increased violent civil disorder.

Syrian refugee children stand behind the fence of a refugee camp in the Turkish border town of Boynuegin in Hatay (Reuters)

“Evacuation options would be limited because of likely communication and travel restrictions.”

The spokesman said: “Because of the current situation, we advise against all travel to Syria. We ask British Nationals to heed this advice and leave the country now.”

Since the protests erupted in mid-March, President Bashar Assad has unleashed the military to crush street demonstrations, with human rights activists saying more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained.

The crackdown has brought international condemnation and sanctions on the regime, which claims armed gangs and foreign conspirators are behind the unrest.

Troops ‘burning homes and crops’

Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stormed a town near the Turkish border on Saturday, burning houses and arresting dozens, witnesses said.

Independent journalists are not allowed into Syria making it difficult to verify events on the ground.

The latest assault followed another Friday of protests, which have grown in size and scope over the last three months, despite Assad’s violent clampdown on public dissent. Activists said security forces shot dead 19 protesters on Friday.

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“They came at 7am to Bdama. I counted nine tanks, 10 armoured carriers, 20 jeeps and 10 buses. I saw shabbiha (pro-Assad gunmen) setting fire to two houses,” said Saria Hammouda, a lawyer living in the border town, in the Jisr al-Shughour region.

Thousands of Syrians have already fled to nearby Turkey after the army clamped down on the area earlier in the month.

Bdama is one of the nerve centres providing food and supplies to several thousand other Syrians who have escaped the violence from frontier villages but chose to take shelter temporarily in fields on the Syrian side of the boundary.

“Bdama’s residents don’t dare take bread to the refugees and the refugees are fearful of arrests if they go into Bdama for food,” Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters.

Another witness said government troops were also burning crops near hillsides in an apparent scorched earth policy.