Turkish NTV news channel said the driver of one of the three buses and a pilgrim were wounded in the attack at a checkpoint just across the Syrian border.

The attack occurred near the central city of Homs early Monday, driver Erhan Surmeli said by telephone from a Turkish hospital near the Syrian border, where the other bus driver, Naci Ozata, was treated for gunshot wounds.

Surmeli said the bus was carrying 25 butchers back to Turkey from Saudi Arabia following Eid Al-Adha (the feast of sacrifice).

“We had stopped at a checkpoint,” Surmeli told The Associated Press by telephone. “Syrian soldiers emerged from behind sandbags and cursed (Turkish Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan when we told them we were Turks. Then they suddenly opened fire at the bus.”

Surmeli said he heard that two other Turkish buses had come under attacks and another passenger was injured. They were able to cross into Turkey, he said.

Private news agency Dogan showed images of a passenger bus with one of its side windows smashed, apparently from a gunshot, after it returned to the Turkish border town of Cizre.

Passengers disembarking at Cizre told Dogan they had been told to get off the bus by up to eight uniformed Syrian soldiers at a checkpoint.

“They were hidden in their hideouts ... these were soldiers, these were not civilians, their flags were there,” a male passenger in his thirties said.

One of the soldiers said “‘Come, come,’ he wanted to get me inside, I didn’t go inside,” the passenger said.

“I had nothing in my hands, there were seven or eight of them. He cocked his gun at me and said ‘Put your hands up’ ... I shouted for everyone to run, we ran and they started firing at our backs. God saved us,” he said.

“We have returned from death. We have returned from death,” said another male middle-aged passenger, sobbing as he spoke.

It was not immediately clear when the incident happened, but it appeared to have taken place overnight, as Dogan’s footage of the passengers back in Turkey was taken early on Monday morning.

A Turkish foreign ministry official said he was aware of an incident and the ministry was trying to establish the details. The ministry also renewed a call on Turkish citizens to avoid traveling to and through Syria.

The wounded were being treated in a hospital in Antakya, in Turkey’s Hatay province just across the Turkish border, NTV reported.