Turkey opens border after tension between Syrian Kurds fleeing ISIL and security forces

Turkish authorities opened the border with Syria on Sept. 19 to let hundreds of Kurds fleeing from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to cross into Turkey, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

"We will take in our brothers fleeing to Anatolia from Syria or any other place without any ethnic or sectarian discrimination," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Sept. 19 during his visit to Azerbaijan. "The entries have started now," he said.

The measure came a few hours after tension broke between security forces and locals who reacted against officials who were keeping Syrian refugees waiting at the border with the province of Şanlıurfa. Turkish police and troops resorted to tear gas and water cannon to disperse the crowd that massed near the wire fence separating the two countries, Doğan News Agency reported. The report also said a woman was injured after stepping on a land mine that triggered an explosion.