French freelance reporter Pierre Torres, who filed copy for several media networks including Agence France Presse, was wounded in Aleppo on Sunday as Syrian troops pushed an assault on rebels, a colleague said.

Torres, 28, was hit by a bullet in the shoulder, according to a Spanish freelance journalist who has seen his injury.

The United Nations said Sunday that 200,000 people have fled the Syrian city of Aleppo in two days as President Bashar Assad's forces step up their assault.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said in a statement that an unknown number of people are trapped in the city and appealed for safe access to Aleppo for aid groups.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood denounced on Sunday President Bashar Assad, his allies Iran and Russia, and the international community for its "silence" and failure to protect civilians.

In a statement issued amid raging battles in Syria's commercial capital Aleppo, the influential Islamist movement said Assad was "legally and morally responsible for the death of every victim in Syria."

Syrian troops on Sunday killed two men as they tried to cross the border into neighboring Jordan, a local official said, as Syria’s state news agency said border guards killed a large number of "terrorists" who attempted to cross into Syria from Turkey.

"At least two men were shot dead by the Syrian army early this morning when they tried to cross the border into the kingdom, along with hundreds of Syrians," Zayed Hammad, head of the Ketab and Sunna Society, which provides aid to more than 50,000 Syrian refugees, told Agence France Presse.

Almost half of those killed in Syria since the outbreak of the anti-regime revolt in March 2011 have died since a failed U.N.-Arab League truce was due to come into force, a monitoring group said on Sunday.

"Some 45 percent of those killed in Syria have been killed since April 12," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

One of the abducted Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Syria on Sunday confirmed that the 11 kidnapped men are in the remote Aleppo area of Aazaz, blaming Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, without naming him, for their protracted captivity.

“We are in good health and we are in the remote Aazaz area which is liberated and not witnessing any bombardment,” abductee Ali Abbas said in a phone interview with LBCI.

More than 12,000 Syrians fleeing the violence in their home country have sought refuge in Algeria, a source close to the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

The authorities have decided to "take charge of Syrians who have sought refuge in Algeria, and whose number is estimated officially at 12,000," the source told AFP, although Syrian opposition sources put the number at up to 20,000.

The General Security received from Syrian authorities on Sunday two Italian technicians who went missing in Syria a few days ago.

The General Security announced in a statement that Oriano Cantari, 64, and Domenico Tedeschi, 36, were handed over to it after three days of coordination with the concerned powers.

Syrian renewed on Sunday its demand to Lebanon to prevent the infiltration of “terrorist groups” from its territories into its own.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem stated: “We hope Lebanon would help thwart the infiltration, which will benefit it and Syria.”

Jordan on Sunday opened its first official refugee camp to help host tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled the mounting violence in its northern neighbor.

"I hope the ordeal of our Syrian brothers will vanish," Interior Minister Ghaleb Zubi told reporters as he and Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh opened the Zaatari camp, which can take up to 120,000 refugees, in Mafraq near the border with Syria.