Thousands of beleaguered civilians fled their homes to escape battles in the north and south of Syria over the weekend, where two different offensives have prompted an exodus in recent days.
Airstrikes reportedly killed more than 100 people on Friday.
In the besieged rebel-held pocket of eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, a new wave of people fled as airstrikes pounded the zone, according to rescuers and a monitor. The offensive there is being conducted by the Syrian army with Russian support.
In the northern Afrin region, Turkish warplanes targeted the main town, Syrian-Kurdish forces and the monitor said. More than 150,000 people have fled the town in the last few days, a senior Kurdish official said. That offensive is being led by Turkey with allied Syrian rebels.
Both offensives entered decisive phases this week. Both are showing how foreign backers and their Syrian allies are reshaping the map after the defeat of Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate last year.
Turkey launched the cross-border offensive in January against the Syrian-Kurdish YPG fighters who control Afrin.
In its monthlong assault, the Syrian military has marched into much of eastern Ghouta, the last major insurgent bastion around Damascus.
Troops splintered Ghouta into three besieged zones in one of the bloodiest offensives of the seven-year war. Thousands of residents came out this week for the first time from the southern pocket around Hammouriyeh town.
State media said 30,000 more civilians reached army positions on Saturday, including some who had started leaving the Harasta zone as well in a new outflow.
Men, women and children staggered under bags and suitcases as they walked along a dirt road, footage on state TV showed. Many carried infants on their shoulders or pushed them in strollers. Some elderly people hobbled on wooden sticks.
The rebel factions accuse the Syrian regime of trying to depopulate opposition towns. The rebels deny accusations made by the regime that they have blocked people from leaving.
Friday's government attack on Kafr Batna involved the use of cluster bombs, napalm-like incendiary weapons, and conventional explosives, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Photos and videos released from the area showed charred bodies covered with sheets lined up near what appeared to be shops.
A medical charity supporting hospitals in eastern Ghouta, the Syrian American Medical Society, said doctors in Kafr Batna were treating patients for severe burn wounds.
Oways al-Shami, a spokesman for the Syrian Civil Defense, said the airstrikes targeted a market and a nearby residential area where scores of people had gathered to buy bread and vegetables during the daily truce called by Russia.
"The medical situation is catastrophic. We can't stay in this situation for long," said Dr. Zouhair Kahaleh, in the nearby town of Arbeen.
The United Nations has said the exact number of people fleeing is not known, nor are all their destinations. Mobile clinics were dispatched to the affected areas and a number of people were taken to hospital in Damascus, the U.N. reported.
The governor of rural Damascus, Alaa Ibrahim, said the government was setting up new centers due to the massive crowds.
Residents would go back home "in a very short time," Ibrahim said. "As the army advances ... we will return the citizens to their homes ... then we will continue providing services."
An army officer in charge of arrivals in Adra said that in recent days authorities had sent 25,000 people into temporary shelters there and in two nearby towns. In Adra, the newcomers were staying in schools, receiving food, water and medicine, he said.
The officer said boys and men between the ages of 15 and 60 could "settle their affairs" with the state by writing a vow saying, "I pledge not to return to armed actions." Some 1,500 had done so in the town, he said.
The state has proposed such settlements before for those who accept the return of its rule in other enclaves it seized with the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias.
Khaled Hamad, a shepherd, said he signed a pledge after leaving Hammouriyeh with his wife and five children on a tractor.
"They said now we were within the state's embrace," he recalled.
The last few days inside had become so harsh that his family had eaten their cow's food, he said.
"[Now] they eat every hour," he said.
Hamad said rebels in Ghouta had shot and killed his brother and had wounded his brother's sons for trying to get out.
An estimated 12,000 to 16,000 people had already left Ghouta before Saturday, while more than 48,000 were reportedly displaced in Afrin, a U.N. aid official in Syria has said.
The Turkish military has pushed the YPG militia back from the border and nearly encircled it with advances on the western and eastern flanks of Afrin town. Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK, which has waged a decadeslong insurgency inside Turkey.
"We can enter Afrin any second. We can give you the good news any minute," Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told a congress of the ruling AK Party.
"Conquest is close. We walk towards that aim."
Turkish air and artillery strikes had rained down in recent days, driving tens of thousands out of the main town by car and on foot, Kurdish authorities and the Observatory said.
On Friday, Turkish aircraft dropped flyers in Arabic and Kurdish on Afrin, asking residents to stay away from "terrorist positions" – a reference to the Syrian Kurdish fighters – and not let themselves be used as "human shields."
The leaflets said civilians wishing to flee Afrin would be guaranteed safety by the Turkish military and urged Syrian Kurdish fighters to "trust the hand we extend to you."
"Come surrender! A calm and peaceful future awaits you in Afrin," the leaflets read.
Hevi Mustafa, a senior civic official, said people fled the main town to other Kurdish-held parts of the region and to government territory. Many were stranded out in the streets without food, she said.
The Turkish military denied on Saturday it had struck a hospital in Afrin, saying it was waging the campaign in a way that would not hurt civilians.
The YPG and the Observatory had said a Turkish air strike on the town's main hospital the previous night had killed 16 people.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council again demanded a cease-fire throughout Syria and backed a U.N.-endorsed roadmap for a peaceful transition and elections. Members reaffirmed that U.N.-led talks in Geneva "remain the central process to find a political solution."
Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. envoy for Syria, told the council he had not been able to form a committee to draft a new constitution because President Bashar Assad's government had not engaged and "we need to have comprehensive participation of all Syrian parties."
Ministers from Russia, Turkey and Iran also underscored the need for a political solution in a joint statement after a meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday. They urged international support for de Mistura's efforts to form a constitutional committee.
