Washington (ANTARA News/AFP) - The United States said Wednesday it found "credible" reports that Syrian forces fired into a Palestinian refugee camp in the port city of Latakia.

"We are very concerned," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

"We have seen these same reports -- we consider them credible -- that Syrian forces fired into the UN Relief and Works Agency camp and that it has caused thousands of Palestinians to flee," she said.

"This just speaks to the brutality and indiscriminate nature of the violence that Assad has unleashed," she said, adding such an attack is "absolutely abhorrent."

UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the agency for Palestinian refugees, reported that more than 5,000 refugees had fled the Ramel camp in southern Latakia under fire. (*)