The numbers fleeing was expected to grow further as long as fighting continued around the town of Idlib, close to the Turkish border, one Turkish official said; but he declined to say how many more Turkey was expecting.

Turkey is wary of any military interventions in Syria, fearing a broader civil war could spill over its borders; but it has signalled that a tide of refugees is one of the factors that could trigger efforts to establish a ‘safe zone’ inside Syria.

Officials have said the other red line for Turkey would be if President Bashar Assad’s forces began massacres in Syrian cities. Turkey has said it would, however, not take unilateral action and any initiative should come from the Arab League.

Some Arab governments, notably Qatar, have advocated establishing an Arab peace-keeping force and arming the rebel Free Syrian Army. Those calls may be repeated at a meeting of Western and Arab states, the “Friends of Syria,” in Istanbul on April 2.

“There has been an increase in those fleeing from Syria to our country,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal told a news conference. “Yesterday, the number of people who had come was 13,700. This morning, the number is 14,700,“

“This shows the seriousness of the situation in Syria.”

Among those who had fled was a general, the seventh top ranking Syrian officer to have defected to Turkey, Unal said.

A steady stream of refugees slips silently through gaps in the barbed wire fence that divides the two countries before settling down to rest on the Turkish side after their perilous journey through the hills dodging land mines and the Syrian army.

There the smugglers leave them to be picked up by Turkish security forces and return across the border to pick up more.

Minibuses ferry the refugees, most of them women and children, to nearby camps to join the thousands already there.
 

“They are firing on women and children. The tanks have entered the city and opening fire on the shops,” said a 22-year-old man who had just arrived from Idlib and described himself as a fighter in the rebel Free Syrian Army. “They are seizing the doctors so they cannot treat the wounded.”

“The (government) soldiers are taking the women and children and lining them up in front of them as a human shield. They are setting the shops and homes on fire,” said the man who declined to give his name.

“The FSA has had to withdraw from Idlib for now because they are using women and children,” he said. “There is no food or water there now. No electricity, nothing ... I will go back and fight as soon as I get my weapon and ammunition.”

As well as looking after around half the 30,000 refugees the United Nations says have fled Syria since the start of the conflict a year ago, Turkey also hosts the main opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Council.

One of the camps inside Turkey, surrounded by high security fences, also houses military defectors. Turkey denies arming the Free Syrian Army rebel force, but analysts say it receives at least logistical and communications support from Ankara.

Turkish officials estimated there were some 200 to 300 Syrians crossing daily into Turkey last week, itself a sharp increase on the numbers in previous weeks.

In response Turkey is to open a new refugee camp near the southern town of Kilis next month to host a further 10,000 Syrians, and work has begun on a camp near the eastern end of the border at Ceylanpinar for 20,000 people, the official said.

That would bring the total capacity for Syrian refugees to some 45,000.

Turkey long courted Syrian President Bashar Assad as part of its push for influence in the Middle East, but ditched its ally last year after the government’s violent suppression of protests and the first wave of refugees began to arrive.

The Turkish government is now at the forefront of efforts to pressure Assad into stepping down or agree a negotiated end to the conflict which has already claimed thousands of lives.