Istanbul: Five Turkish soldiers were killed when their tank was hit in an attack carried out by Kurdish YPG militia fighters on Saturday in northwest Syria’s Afrin region, Turkey’s armed forces said.

According to state-run Anadolu news agency, the latest attack brought to seven the number of Turkish soldiers killed on Saturday in Operation Olive Branch, which Turkey launched against the YPG in Afrin last month.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Syrians were now fleeing heightened violence in the northwestern province of Idlib to seek refuge near Turkey's border, which remains closed to all but critical medical cases.

Syrian armed forces have thrust deeper into the mainly rebel-held province in recent months and Turkey last month launched military action in the nearby Afrin region, targeting Kurdish YPG militia fighters.

‘Syrians fleeing to the Turkish border seeking safety and asylum are being forced back with bullets and abuse,’ Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said.

President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, asked about the HRW statement, told reporters that Turkish soldiers were there to protect these people and that Ankara has had an ‘open-door policy’ since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.

A senior government official later told Reuters:

‘There has been absolutely no case of civilians being fired upon at the border.’

HRW cited U.N. figures saying 247,000 Syrians were displaced to the border area between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15.

‘As fighting in Idlib and Afrin displaces thousands more, the number of Syrians trapped along the border willing to risk their lives to reach Turkey is only likely to increase,’ Fakih said.

In the latest fighting in Afrin, five Turkish soldiers were killed on Saturday when their tank was hit in an attack carried out by YPG fighters, Turkey’s armed forces said.