Syrians walk past a T-shirt with a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad with an Arabic word read:"we love you," at a popular market in downtown Damascus , Syria, on Monday, May 30, 2011. Syrian troops shelled a town in the center of the country Monday, and for the first time in the two-month-old revolt against the president, residents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades put up fierce resistance, activists said. State media said four soldiers were killed. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)

A Turkish official says 1,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey overnight, raising the total number of refugees in the country to 1,600.

The official in Hatay province says the refugees, who were fleeing violence in Syria, crossed the border late Wednesday and early Thursday.

He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules.

An AP photographer on Thursday saw dozens more refugees, some on motor bikes or pickup trucks, on the other side of the frontier, hoping to cross into Turkey.

Ambulances were on standby at a border crossing to rush any wounded refugees to hospitals.

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