One dead, 26 wounded as rockets hit Turkish town near Syrian border

KILIS, Turkey — Rockets pounded the Turkish town of Kilis near the Syrian border on Sunday, a Reuters witness reported, killing one person and injuring 26, a day after the government promised to protect the area from repeated attacks by Daesh militants.

Two rockets struck houses in a poor neighbourhood near the town centre in the morning. Sixteen people were injured and Turkish soldiers near the border returned fire into Syria, security sources said.

Later in the day, one person was killed and 10 more injured when two more rockets crashed into a mosque, Hurriyet Daily News reported. The mosque was 100 metres from the governor's office, where Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan was holding talks at the time.

"I am calling for our citizens to be calm," Akdogan told a news conference in Kilis. "All measures will be taken in this regard. Unfortunately there is no authority across our border."

Akdogan said measures would be announced after a Cabinet meeting on Monday.

Lying just across the border from an area of Syria controlled by Daesh, Kilis has been peppered by rocket fire in recent weeks. On Friday, two people were killed in an attack on the town, home to around 110,000 Syrian refugees.

Earlier on Sunday, residents gathered near the houses where the rockets struck, some of them calling for the local governor to resign and others shouting slogans against the government. Riot police were present, but there were no clashes.

"I cannot sleep, my son wakes up with nightmares, he cannot sleep. We aren't safe here. We are afraid to stay in our houses," Ayse, a 46-year-old woman, told Reuters.

Visiting the nearby city of Gaziantep on Saturday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised that all necessary measures would be taken to prevent more rocket fire.

He was accompanied by EU Council President Donald Tusk, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel who had been expected to visit Kilis last weekend but the location and timing of the visit were changed.

Merkel said on Saturday she favoured establishing "safe zones" to shelter refugees in Syria. At a news conference with US President Barack Obama on Sunday she said these could be agreed areas where civilians could feel free from bombardment, rather than zones protected by foreign forces.