Children rest on tyres at the Bab Al-Salam refugee camp in Azaz, near the Syrian-Turkish border November 19, 2014

Turkish border guards have abused - and even killed - refugees trying to escape the fighting in Syria, according to an Amnesty International report.

Amnesty said at least 17 people were shot and killed by border guards at unofficial crossing points between December 2013 and August.

The report cited 10 other incidents in which 31 people were allegedly beaten by Turkish border guards.

The organisation has shared the information with Turkish authorities.

"Turkey is clearly struggling to meet even the most basic needs of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. The result is that many of those who have made it across the border have been abandoned to a life of destitution," said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International's researcher on Turkey.

The report urged Turkey to "radically revise its border practices, ending the necessity for refugees to use dangerous irregular crossings".

More than one million Syrian refugees who have flocked to Turkey are struggling to survive on their own as overfilled government-run refugee camps operate at full capacity, the report finds.

Turkey, which hosts half of the 3.2 million refugees who have fled Syria, is shouldering the heaviest burden of what yesterday's report calls the world's worst refugee crisis in a generation.

"In three days in September 2014, Turkey received some 130,000 refugees from Syria - more than the entire European Union had in the past three years," the report said.

Irish Independent