Syrian army 'cuts off supplyline to refugees'

The Syrian army has cut off a border village supplying people fleeing to Turkey, closing its only bakery and setting fire to surrounding forests, residents who managed to escape said Sunday. Speaking near the Turkish-Syrian border, witnesses said Bdama was now largely deserted and that the security forces had set up checkpoints on roads leading to the settlement, which lies several kilometres from the frontier. A Syrian activist had said Saturday that a line of at least six tanks and 15 troop transporters entered Bdama, part of a crackdown in the northwestern province of Idlib that has already prompted 10,500 Syrians to seek shelter in Turkey. Raka El-Abdu, a 23-year-old Syrian, told AFP he fled Bdama on Saturday but returned Sunday morning to get bread, using mountain routes that only locals would know, and found the village virtually empty. "They closed the only bakery there. We cannot get bread anymore. ... I saw soldiers shooting the owner of the bakery. They hit him in the chest and the leg," he said. "The army is controlling all the entrances of the village and checking identities to arrest protesters," he added. Hamid, 26, said he also fled Bdama on Saturday with his family after the security forces opened random fire on the village. "I was outside my house. ... They opened fire from far away. We fled into the mountains. I then saw my motorbike burning," he said. "Yesterday morning, they poured gasoline and set the mountains ablaze to prevent people from fleeing," Hamid added. His friend Samir said Bdama's residents had begun to flee the village several days ago after Syrian militiamen and intelligence officers arrived and fired shots in the air. "Only 1,000 people had remained there and they also fled yesterday," he said. "The people who stay behind are the ones who work for the regime."