Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday invited United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send representatives to view first hand the growing humanitarian crisis on the Turkey-Syria border, as the number of refugees arriving from Syria soars, according to dpa. A spokesman for Turkey's Foreign Ministry told dpa Friday that Davutoglu extended the invitation during a phone conversation with Ban. Davutoglu told the UN chief that "the Syrian army is conducting military operations with helicopters close to the Turkish border and that during the previous 24 hours over 2,500 Syrians had crossed into Turkey," he said. "The secretary general said he informed the UN Secretariat and UNHCR representatives on the border to follow up development first hand." As of late Thursday the total number of Syrians seeking refuge in Turkey had risen to 21,000, but the number was expected to rise sharply, he added. "We are still collating figures for last night but we expect that the total is now around 24,000," he said. Most of the new arrivals had crossed the border in the district of Reyhanli, close to where the military action inside Syria is believed to be taking place, the spokesman added.
