A reported 18 Syrian civilians trying to cross into Turkey from Syria were captured and beaten by Turkish border police, according to a recent report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The NGO said the migrants were arrested in the northwestern Syrian region of Afrin, which was severely affected by a devastating quake on February 6.

Ankara, for its part, has said it doesn't intend to repatriate all refugees.

Over three million Syrians have tried to flee since 2011

According to the monitoring group, Turkish border guards beat and abused the Syrian civilians who were subsequently sent back to western Syria.

Over three million Syrians have attempted to flee to Turkey from war-torn Syria since the start of the conflict in 2011. Ankara over the years has erected a wall separating the two countries.

The fate of millions of Syrian refugees who have lived in Turkey for more than a decade has been a central theme in Turkey's heated electoral climate.

According to the NGO, Turkish border guards over the past 12 years have killed "hundreds" of Syrians trying to cross the border.

Ankara has not confirmed these figures, which are difficult to independently verify on the ground.

Syrian migrants at the center of Turkish electoral campaign

Turkey intends to repatriate some, but not all, of the nearly four million Syrians who reached the country after the start of the conflict in 2011.

"It would not be appropriate for us to say that we will repatriate all of them, there is a need for employees in some professions", Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu told newspaper Hürriyet after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made statements that Ankara would "encourage" one million Syrians to return home.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, has pledged to repatriate all migrants if he wins a runoff vote on May 28.

Stressing that Turkey has already sent 550,000 refugees back to Syria, Çavusoglu spoke about the intention of repatriating others "in a dignified way", without specifying the number but stating that Ankara will work on a plan.

"We not only need to send them to safe areas", referring to zones in northern Syria currently under Turkish control, "but also to areas controlled by the regime (of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) -- in other words, we need to send them back to the cities where they came from," the foreign minister said, stressing that the United Nations must be involved in preparing the country's infrastructure for the return of Syrians.