Syrians board a boat that will take them across the Orontes river to Turkey A group of 20 Syrian soldiers, including a general, defected from the army and fled to Turkey on Tuesday, joining hundreds of other ex-troops from Syria’s military. Around 40 people, including defectors and family members, crossed the border into the southern Turkish province of Hatay. They were taken to the Apaydin refugee camp, which holds all Syria’s defected soldiers, Turkey’s state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Since the start of the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and rebel forces, dozens of senior army officers have defected and headed to Turkey.
Turkish authorities have refused to give the exact number of Syrian defectors, who typically join the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army.
Turkey, which supports the insurgency, is housing a total of 150,000 Syrian refugees at camps near the border.
Last month, the attorney-general of Syria’s northwestern province of Aleppo declared defection from President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in a video posted Wednesday by activists.
Judge Ahmed al-Nuaimi said he defected in protest at the Assad regime’s “crimes” against the Syrian people and that he joined the opposition, the Free Syrian Judges Council.