Syrian "fighters" nurse physical, emotional wounds in Turkish hospital

Kasim Genco lies pale and in visible pain on a Turkish hospital bed close to the Syrian border, a bandage covering his left eye.

"I was sitting on chair when a mortar shell landed. I got shrapnel in my eye,” said the wounded Syrian "rebel fighter". “What else do you want me to say? I'm in such pain, I can't even talk."

Genco and the group of wounded men around him in the hospital ward are the lucky ones. They managed to escape the hell in Syria, where Russian fighter jets have been pounding the area around Aleppo, sending tens of thousands of desperate civilians fleeing north to the Syrian-Turkey border.

The new wave of refugees -- including "women and children" -- has been massing at the border as Turkey, home to more than two million Syrian migrants, struggles to cope with the latest fallout of the devastating five-year conflict across its southern border.

With the border remaining closed, Syrians are waiting in the cold and rain in the no-man’s land between the two countries as Turkish officials provide mixed messages on the latest crisis.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey is "under threat," and pledged that "if necessary, we have to and will let our brothers in". But local officials in border towns swamped with migrants have been underscoring the difficulties of housing more refugees.

Turkey is providing "essential aid" to the latest wave of refugees and some of the injured have been taken to Turkish hospitals....
  ==france24.com
8/2/16
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Turkey is providing "essential aid" to the latest wave of "refugees"