LEBANON: Snow and rain storm batters makeshift Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon

Record ID: 274463

  • Title: LEBANON: Snow and rain storm batters makeshift Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon
  • Date: 11th December 2013
  • Summary: ZAHLE, LEBANON (DECEMBER 11, 2013) (REUTERS) CHILDREN ON SNOWY HILL BESIDE REFUGEE TENTS MAKESHIFT TENTS AND SHELTERS COVERED IN SNOW TYRES USED TO HOLD ROOFS DOWN VARIOUS OF SYRIAN MAN TRYING TO FIX HIS TENT VARIOUS OF SYRIAN FAMILY TRYING TO KEEP WARM IN OPEN TENT (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) SYRIAN REFUGEE, JINED AL-HUSSEIN, SAYING: "It is cold in the rain and there is nothing
  • Embargoed: 26th December 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Conflict,International Relations,Weather,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACWMY5BMVW5OMDUZP92P9LDFMG
  • Story Text: The season's first snow settled in parts of Lebanon on Wednesday (December 11) and refugee children who have fled the war in Syria took the opportunity to have a snowball fight outside their tents.
    But the worst of the winter is yet to come for 2.2 million refugees living outside Syria and millions more displaced inside the country.
    A storm named Alexa is sweeping across Syria and Lebanon, bringing with it high winds and freezing temperatures - and marking the beginning of the third winter since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011.
    In a tented settlement a few kilometres (miles) from the border in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, more than 1,000 people live in rudimentary shelters.
    As strong winds blew snow into the tents, one family gathered around a small fire, desperate to keep warm.
    "It is cold in the rain and there is nothing else. Hunger and cold weather and there is nothing, as you can see. I have been here for a week, now living in the rain and snow with no one helping us in anything, no one at all," said Jined al-Hussein.
    Men filled bags with dirt to hold down tents and placed car tyres and bricks atop the flimsy wooden structures to prevent the wind from tearing them apart.
    In Lebanon, more that 835,000 refugees live in tented camps, unused buildings or with friends or family. The Lebanese government has decided not to house them in formal camps due to local sensitivities that they will stay permanently.
    Aid agencies can help them with food, tents, blankets and clothes but they cannot set up formal refugee camps.
    One man from Aleppo said it was a miserable situation.
    "We were not prepared for such a storm, it surprised us. The tents blew about, letting the rain and snow come in on the little children. We would have preferred to stay in Syria with the shelling, it would have been easier than this storm," said Abdel-Karim Ali Ibrahim.
    Lebanon's Meteorological Department said Alexa would last until Saturday night and that temperatures could plummet to minus seven degrees Celsius in some mountainous areas of Lebanon.
    The Lebanese government said it was "trying its best" and that the army had been called in to make refugee shelters ready for winter.
    The has snow wreaked havoc across the region and grounded the start of a humanitarian airlift that was meant to start bringing supplies from Iraq into the northeastern Kurdish areas of Syria, where tens of thousands of people have been out of reach.
    Snowfall in Syria has not halted the fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, which has killed more than 100,000 people in the past 2-1/2 years.
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