ANKARA: A Turkish border patrol killed one of eight civilians trying to cross illegally from Turkey into Syria on the tense frontier, the Turkish military said on Tuesday.

The shooting was the latest in a string of fatal incidents along the 900 km border and underscores a growing concern that Syria’s more than two-year-old civil war is fueling lawlessness and dragging in neighboring states.

The military, which did not give the nationality of the eight civilians or say whether they were armed smugglers, said the group had been trying to cross from Turkey’s Hatay province into northwestern Syria on Monday and had fired on the Turkish patrol after the troops had whistled a warning.

The Turkish troops fired back in line with their rules of engagement, killing one of the civilians, it said.

The military has issued frequent statements on border incidents, in which some Turkish troops have been wounded, in the past few weeks, but Monday’s clash appeared to be the first time the army had shot at civilians trying to cross into Syria, and not into Turkey, as is more common.

With its hilly terrain and thick vegetation, Hatay, a panhandle province that juts down into Syria, makes a relatively easy crossing point for smugglers and rebel Syrian fighters, as well as refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria.

Turkey shelters around 500,000 Syrian refugees as well as rebels fighting to overthrow the regime.