The exodus to Turkey's Hatay province since early last week has been mainly from the northwestern city of Jisr al-Shugur, the latest flashpoint in the anti-regime uprising to come under assault by Syrian security forces.

The refugees are sheltering in two tent villages set up by the Turkish Red Crescent in Hatay, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday. Two more are under construction in the region that could host another 9,000.
After crossing the border, they are escorted by Turkish police either to area hospitals or to one of the tent villages.

Some 60 people were hospitalised on Saturday with various injuries, local sources said.

A field hospital has been set up in the first and largest of the camps, in Yagladadi, to provide emergency care.

Turkish foreign ministry official Halit Cevik told journalists touring the camps on Saturday that Ankara "has made every effort to welcome the Syrian refugees," but was unable to say how many more were expected to seek shelter.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a personal friend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said Friday that Syrian troops "do not behave humanely."

He called the crackdown in Jisr al-Shugur "unacceptable", and slammed the treatment of the bodies of women slain by Syrian security forces as an "atrocity", Anatolia reported.