2 child refugees die as heavy snow buries Syria’s Idlib

By Khaled Suleiman

IDLIB, Syria

Two children were killed Friday in a collapse of refugee tents in Syria’s northwestern city of Idlib due to heavy snowfall.

The deaths occured when snow piled up on roofs of 70 tents have caused collapses in a small refugee camp in Haram town in Idlib, according to an Anadolu Agency reporter.

Thousands of Syrian refugees have arrived in Idlib and rural Aleppo over the last few days under a deal to evacuate civilians and opposition fighters from eastern Aleppo.

Those arriving in the area had no more than clothes on their backs, and many are now sleeping in unheated buildings or tents as temperatures drop below freezing.

“The snow storm has caused the collapse of our tents and closure of roads amid a scarcity of water and foodstuff,” Qadir Darwish, a Syrian refguee, told Anadolu Agency.

He said the freezing temperature has hampered the delivery of breads and foodstuff as the roads to their area were closed.

Darwish appealed to the Turkish aid agency IHH and other relief groups to intervene to provide refugees in Idlib with more tents to protect them from the snow storm.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced by the conflict.