SURUC: Tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds have crossed into Turkey in the past 24 hours, fleeing an advance by Islamic State fighters who have seized dozens of villages close to the border and are advancing on a Syrian town.

Turkey opened a stretch of the frontier on Friday after Kurdish civilians fled their homes, fearing an imminent attack on the border town of Ayn al-Arab. Islamic State is now within 15 km of the town, also known as Kobani, according to a Kurdish commander on the ground.

Islamic State’s advances in northern Syria have prompted calls for help by the region’s Kurds who fear a massacre in Kobani. The town sits in a strategic position on the border and has prevented the radical Sunni Muslim militants from consolidating their gains across northern Syria.

“Clashes started in the morning and we fled by car. We were 30 families in total,” said Lokman Isa, 34, a farmer who had crossed into Turkey.

He said Islamic State fighters entered his village, Celebi, with heavy weapons, while the Kurdish forces battling them only had light arms. “They have destroyed every place they have gone to. We saw what they did in Iraq in Sinjar and we fled in fear,” he said in the Turkish town of Suruc, where Turkish authorities were setting up a camp.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told CNN Turk television on Saturday that 45,000 Syrian Kurds had crossed a 30-km section of the border since Turkey opened it on Friday. “The United States, Turkey, Russia, friendly countries must help us. They must bomb Islamic State. All they can do is cut off heads, they have nothing to do with Islam,” said Mustafa Saleh, a 30 year-old water industry worker in Suruc at the site of a boarding school where tents were being set up for refugees.

“I would have fought to my last drop of blood against Islamic State but I had to bring the women and children.”

Kurdish forces have evacuated at least 100 villages on the Syrian side since the Islamic State onslaught started on Tuesday and have abandoned control of scores as the militant group gained ground.

“Islamic State sees Kobani like a lump in the body, they think it is in their way,” said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria’s civil war.

The Islamic State has executed at least 11 Kurdish civilians, including boys, in the villages it has seized near Kobani, the Observatory said.

More than 300 Kurdish fighters crossed into Syria from Turkey late on Friday to help push back Islamic State’s advance, said Abdulrahman, adding it was not clear which group the fighters belonged to.

“Islamic State is killing any civilian it finds in a village,” Mustefa Ebdi, director of a local radio station called Arta FM, said. He said he could see thousands of people waiting to cross the border into Turkey.

“People prefer to flee than to remain and die,” he said. “(Islamic State wants) to eliminate anything that is Kurdish. This is creating a state of terror.” “I confirm that massacres have happened in the villages of eastern Kobani (province),” he added.

On his Facebook page Ebdi said the killing of 34 civilians - women, elderly, children and the disabled - had been documented. He said residents of 200 villages had been forced to flee.

Some 1,500 refugees were staying at the camp in Suruc but most are spread out across the region, staying with relatives.

“It is a very painful situation,” said Fadile Genco, 60, weeping as her eight children gathered around because her 67-year-old husband had stayed on in Syria to fight the militants.

“If my husband does not come what will I do with all the children,” Genco said.

Esmat al-Sheikh, head of Kurdish forces defending Kobani, said clashes were taking place to the north and east on Saturday.

Islamic State fighters using rockets, artillery, tanks and armoured vehicles had advanced further towards Kobani overnight and were now within 15 km, he told Reuters by telephone.

Published in Dawn, September 21st , 2014