Turkish border guards shot dead five Syrian citizens

Rome, June 16 : Turkish border guards shot dead five Syrian citizens including a one-year-old baby girl as they tried to cross Turkey's tightly controlled border, a Syrian monitoring group said.

Two other men were wounded by Turkish border guards in the incident at Hatia in northwest Idlib province, reported the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies for its information on a network of activists and doctors inside Syria.

As the civil war between pro-government forces and rebels reaches its endgame, Idlib has become a dumping ground for civilians and fighters bussed northward from rebel-held areas across Syria that have submitted to government control in recent months.

Turkish border guards have shot and beaten civilians caught crossing illegally, Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported.