In the village of Yumurtalik, just over two miles west of the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish side of the border, picnic blankets dot a pistachio orchard; groups of men and women sit around eating and chatting. Some distribute flatbreads, olives and cheese, while others stand at the edge of a field, pointing at the barbed wire that separates the two countries.

“This border has no meaning for us,” says Rahman, 40. “We are all of the same blood. The pain in Kobani is our pain, and their fight is our fight.” Every now and then the thuds of missiles can be heard in the distance. The frontline between Islamic State (Isis) and the Syrian Kurdish People’s Defence Units (PYD) has steadily crept closer to Kobani over the past week.

“We have come here to protect Kobani and to watch over this border,” Nasrettin, 47, says. “We don’t trust Turkey to do this right. They would be happy if Isis wiped Kurdistan from the map.”

Like the majority of Kurds here he firmly believes that Ankara is actively supporting Isis with heavy weaponry, medical care and money – a charge that the Turkish government vehemently denies. Facebook pictures and YouTube videos that appear to back up their suspicions are eagerly shared among the picnickers, and continuous attacks by Turkish security forces on Kurdish activists gathering in border villages is proof enough for most that Turkey does not want the Kurds to prevail in Kobani.

“We arrived on Monday from Siirt,” explains Mehmet, 55. “We want to show support and be there for our brothers and sisters across the border. We want to show them and the world that we will not give up on them. We will stay as long as we have to.”

One woman says that she wants to “send a message to the world”. “I am a mother of five, but I have been here for four days, and all I can think about are the children in Kobani who are dying every day,” says Hatice, 38. “As a human being, how could I not?”

Ismail, 24, came from Istanbul to provide any help necessary to refugees and activists. “This issue is a very emotional issue for me. I can’t sleep or eat, really,” he says. “All I think about day and night is Kobani and the people there.” He and his friend Sedat, both of them TV actors, plan to make a film about the suffering of the Syrian Kurdish people.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turkish Kurds load a pick-up after they cross the border to join Syrian Kurdish fighters in Kobani. Photograph: Burhan Ozbilici/AP

Kurds from all over the country have rushed to the 20-mile-long border the Syrian Kurdish province of Kobani shares with Turkey. Many arrive in buses, some in private cars. Often they are stopped at a police checkpoint, and according to activists in Suruç, many are prevented from reaching the border town altogether.

Constant ID checks on all the roads to Suruç and a high presence of Turkish security forces heighten a sense of solidarity. When one minibus driver volunteers information about a Syrian Kurdish passenger on the way to the border to a gendarmerie patrol, the vehicle erupts in protest. “Why do you collaborate with the police?” shouts one man in Kurdish; other passengers nod in agreement. “It’s not your job to help them.”

Suruç resembles a town in a state of emergency: dozens of armoured police vehicles and heavily armed anti-terrorism units line the streets, water cannon stand at the ready. The smell of teargas hangs in the air. Gendarmerie forces block every village road in the district, trying to keep activists from reaching the border regions.

Azad and Okan, 22-year-old students in the Aegean city of Izmir, say the police violence they have faced over the past four days has hardened their resolve to stay and demonstrate in support of their “brothers and sisters” in Kobani. The previous day, 12 of their friends were taken in custody during a protest. “Why do they treat us as terrorists when the real terrorists are in Kobani, killing and looting?” asks Okan. Despite a lack of fighting experience, they mull over the possibility of joining the armed resistance in Kobani.

“We are thinking of going across the border to fight with the PYD if need be,” Azad says. “This concerns all of us, and we are not afraid.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Turkish soldier stands guard at the Syrian border near Suruc. Photograph: Burhan Ozbilici/AP

The jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, has previously called on the Kurdish people to support the resistance against Isis. “Not only the people of Rojava [western or Syrian Kurdistan], but also everyone in the north [Turkey] and other parts of Kurdistan should act accordingly,” he said in a message sent through his lawyers.

The PKK said 400 of its fighters from Qandil in northern Iraq have joined the armed resistance in Kobani, and hundreds of young men and women from Turkey are thought to have crossed the border to fight.

On Tuesday, police arrested eight young men, including one lorry driver, who announced that they wanted to go to Kobani to support the resistance there. “Sometimes we create a fight with the police to cause a diversion,” says a 16-year-old boy from Suruç. “What else can we do to make sure our friends make it to the other side?”

Ahmed, 41, is one of the seasoned combatants who want to take up arms against Isis. Originally from Siirt, he has been with the PKK in Turkey since 1991, but for the past two years he has been fighting against Islamist militants in Iraq. Six days ago he decided to join the battle against Isis in Kobani province.

After several brief visits with PYD fighters across the border he is ready to go. He is waiting for nightfall in a small village close to Kobani. “PYD fighters will come to the border fence to help us cross,” he explains. “They know the safe spots.”

According to Syrian Democratic Union party (PYD) co-chair Salih Muslim, Turkey has so far rejected all requests to allow Kurdish fighters and PKK aid to cross into Kobani legally.

Ahmed shields his eyes to point out PYD lines on a nearby hill. “We are not afraid of them. They should be afraid of us,” he says. “We fight much better than they do, but we are in need of better weapons. They come with tanks and missiles, we have only some AKs and our bodies to push them back.”

Speaking at a press conference at the EU parliament in Brussels on Wednesday, Muslim warned of a pending “massacre similar to that in Sinjar” in Kobani.

Despite the desperate situation on the frontline, PYD fighters in Turkey say their “spirit is unbroken”. Jemal, 18, and Hussein, 22, both from Kobani, have been working in Sulaymaniya, northern Iraq, for the past year, but are now back to defend their homeland. Carrying a small backpack each, they are waiting for a bus to take them to the border. As Syrian nationals, they are allowed to cross back into Kobani at the checkpoint in Mürsitpinar.

Both have previously received military training by the PYD, and both have been fighting in the Syrian war for more than two years. “It is our duty to help our people,” Jemal says. Is he afraid of facing Isis? He laughs. “Never. We are the lions of Kobani,” Jemal says. “We will not cede an inch of our city to them.”