The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Freezing temperatures, snow, and heavy rain worsen humanitarian crisis in refugee camps

Refugee camps in north Syrian are witnessing catastrophic conditions as temperatures drop below freezing temperature, where since the beginning of this week a frost situation has been prevailing the area, also the snowfall on the border camps made things even worse, as there are no heating materials and the gasoline is not available and its price is high, and at the same time, the people are suffering an extreme poor conditions.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the situation in the camps of Khirbet al-Jawz and Ayn al-Bayda, in the western countryside of Jisr al-Shughur near the border with Iskenderun which witnessed snowfall, this closed some of the roads that lead to the camp communities there, also the camps of Atma, Deir Hassan, Sarmada, Ma’arrat Mesrin, and Harem have witnessed the same fate.

The extreme cold, high prices, and the unavailability of heating materials such as gasoline and firewood; have pushed the people to use cheap non-traditional materials such as tires, shoes, old clothes, burned oil, and plastic.
This causes the killing of citizens by suffocation and by fire.

The Syrian Observatory monitored the death of a child after her tent was burnet a few days ago, also three people of one family died suffocated from the emissions of the heating materials inside their tent in Idlib countryside, and an infant baby died of cold in camps of Azaz a few days ago.
Relief and service parties still stand idly by in the face of what is happening in these camps, where the displaced people are still trying to preserve the last of what is left for them of life in these camps, amid appeals for their relief and help in light of weather conditions that warn of more tragedies.