Turkey has sent hundreds of refugees back to Syria after clashes with Turkish military police at their camp near the border in a protest over living conditions, officials said on Thursday, the first such mass deportation since the conflict began, reports Reuters.
Refugees threw rocks at military police who fired teargas and water cannon in the unrest in the Suleymansah camp, near the Turkish town of Akcakale, on Wednesday.
"These people were involved in yesterday's violence, they were seen by the security cameras in the camp," a camp official told Reuters by telephone. "Between 600 and 700 have been deported. The security forces are still looking at the footage, and if they see more they will deport them."
A second Turkish official in the region said about 400 had been sent home.
But a Turkish government official in the capital Ankara denied the Syrians had been deported, saying this would be contrary to the rules Turkey has set for temporarily sheltering Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.
