The Turkish government "confirmed the figure" of 100,000, said Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR.

The UN body on Saturday said that as many as hundreds of thousands of refugees might flee the fighting.

Syrian Kurds were leaving the area around Ain al-Arab, or Kobane, as the town is known in Kurdish, which is under attack by IS forces.

Until now, Kobane, the third biggest Kurdish population centre in Syria, had been relatively safe and had taken in 200,000 people displaced from elsewhere in Syria.