(AP) — A steady stream of Iranians were crossing the border into Turkey on Thursday after the frontier was closed for much of the day before.

Most of them already had links to Turkey. Elyar Akbari, a 22-year-old from Tabriz, Iran, is a student in Turkey’s western city of Izmir. He cut a visit home short due to the war, but his family stayed behind.

“I don’t believe that Iranians will leave their country,” he said. “Only students or people who already work in Turkey will come for now.”

Kadir Ozel, 40, a Turkish citizen living in Tabriz with his family, crossed the border to drop off his children. They will stay with their grandmother and uncle in Ankara.

“I brought my children, they were very scared. But I have to go back for work,” he said.

A woman who asked to be identified only by her first name, Fariba, out of security concerns, crossed to wait out the war with her son who lives in Izmir.

But her neighbors couldn’t escape because they have no money for the journey, she said, “so they stay home, and they are scared.”