A Turkish soldier stands guard as a Syrian refugee boy carries his belongings at the border in Suruc, Turkey, late Saturday. (AP Photo)
KUCUK KENDIRCILER, Turkey (AP) -- The number of refugees seeking shelter in Turkey from the Islamic State group's advance across northern Syria has hit 100,000 in less than a week, an official said Sunday.<br />
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The head of Turkey's disaster management agency, Fuat Oktay, said the figure relates to Syrians escaping the area near the Syrian border town of Kobani, where fighting has raged between IS and Kurdish fighters since Thursday.<br />
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The U.N. refugee agency said earlier that about 70,000 Syrians have crossed into Turkey in the past 24 hours, and that it was preparing for the arrival of hundreds of thousands more. Those are significant numbers, even in the context of the 1.5 million refugees who've fled to Turkey in the past three-and-a-half years.<br />
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Turkish authorities said they were ready to deal with the influx.<br />
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"We have been prepared for this," disaster management agency spokesman Dogan Eskinat said. "We are also prepared for worse."<br />
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The refugees, most of them ethnic Kurds, have been desperate to reach Turkey and escape the advance of religious extremists barreling across Syria.<br />
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On Sunday, heavy clashes broke out between the Islamic State group and Kurdish fighters only a few miles from Kobani, which is also known as Ayn Arab.<br />
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The Islamic State group was bombarding villagers with tanks, artillery and multiple rocket launchers, said Nasser Haj Mansour, an official at the defense office in Syria's Kurdish region.<br />
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"They are even targeting civilians who are fleeing," Haj Mansour told The Associated Press by telephone.
