The U.N. refugee agency says some 70,000 Syrians have crossed into Turkey in the past 24 hours to escape fighting between Kurdish forces and the Islamic State group.

A spokeswoman for the agency says most of those coming across the border near Syria's northern town of Kobani are Kurdish women, children and elderly.

Selin Unal told the Associated Press on Sunday that "people are still coming" and urged the international community to step up its aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey, already numbering some 1.5 million.