IDLIB, Syria
Around 50,000 internally displaced people in more than 100 refugee camps were battered by torrential downpour that started at midnight in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province.
The night-long heavy rains have added more misery to the already poor living conditions of Syrian refugees at the camps.
IDLIB, SYRIA - JANUARY 17: A view of a Syrian refugee camp after heavy rain caused flood damaging to the camp in Idlib, Syria on January 17, 2021. ( İzzeddin İdilbi - Anadolu Agency )
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Ali Hamada, a civilian who fled regime attacks and settled in Idlib's Keferarouk Camp, said that they have suffered the same ordeal every winter for nine years.
"We left our house and land behind and rented agricultural land to set up our tent. Nobody supports us," he lamented.
Stating that they are failing to prevent the rainfalls from ravaging their tents, Hammade said: "It continues to rain, we have no place to go, our tents are under water."
"We have no clothes left”
Another camp resident Nisrin Kaddour, a mother of five, whose husband suffers from diabetes, said that she had to leave the tent with her family because of the rainfalls.
"All our belongings were flooded, we ran out of clothes. We do not have a blanket under which we can warm, my children got sick," she told Anadolu Agency.
Asserting that they have nowhere to go, Kaddour appealed to non-governmental organizations to provide help to Syrian refugees in the camps.
Mohammed Hallaj, a humanitarian activist, who conducts data studies on displaced civilians, noted that more than 108 tent camps have been damaged over the last 48 hours as a result of the heavy rains in Idlib and Aleppo countryside.
Syria has been ravaged by a civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protesters. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, and millions more displaced.
Idlib falls within a de-escalation zone forged under an agreement between Turkey and Russia. The area has been the subject of multiple cease-fire understandings, which have frequently been violated by the Assad regime and its allies.
*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat
