Hundreds of Syrians flee bakery attack to Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey: Hundreds of Syrians crossed into Turkey on Monday, a day after an airstrike reportedly targeted a bakery and killed scores of people in a rebel-held Syrian town, a Turkish government official said.
Some 700 people, most of them women and children, arrived in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, the official said. The state-run Anadolu Agency put the number at 1,100, and said the refugees arrived on foot or by cars.
Turkey is hosting more than 145,000 refugees from Syria, where President Bashar Assad’s regime relies heavily on airstrikes in its fight against insurgents. The conflict in Syria dates to March 2011, and human rights activists estimate more than 40,000 people have died in what began as a peaceful uprising but has become a civil war.
The Turkish official said the refugees streaming in Monday were from Hama, the province where the central town of Halfaya is located. On Sunday, some Syrian activists said one of the regime’s airstrikes targeted a bakery in Halfaya.
Amateur videos posted online showed the bodies of many dead and wounded scattered in a street. The videos appeared to be genuine and corresponded with other reporting by The Associated Press.
The Observatory for Human Rights said Monday it had collected the names of 40 men and three women killed in Halfaya. The group also reported seeing photos of the dead bodies of 15 more unknown men. On Sunday, it reported 60 dead.
Separately, the Turkish official said a tent in the Telhamut refugee camp caught fire late on Sunday, killing a two-year-old boy. Four of his siblings were injured, and three were in serious condition at a hospital. The fire at the camp, which is near the town of Ceylanpinar, was triggered by an electric heater.
The Turkish official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists on the record.
In July, two refugees died in a similar fire at another refugee camp.