Snowstorm brings more misery to Syrians in IDP camps Refugee News

Sheikh Bilal Campground, Syria – In northwestern Syrian Afrin, residents of Sheikh Bilal Camp are struggling to keep their homes intact after a severe winter storm brought more than a foot of snow.

While the children built snowmen and participated in snowball fights at sub-zero temperatures on Thursday, their parents struggled to repair the fallen tents and clear the roads of snow.

Some 160 families have been trapped by storms over the past two days and are struggling not to break their tents.

“When the snowstorm started, I prayed to God for light, but it got worse,” said Douja Al Ali, an Al Jazeera resident who has been living in an internally displaced person camp for four years. “Everything is frozen! We need help! ”

At least one child has died after a tent fell, and their mother is in the intensive care unit.

Millions of displaced people living in Syrian camps and refugees have long struggled to cope with the winter, but the United Nations has said it is far worse this year, with rising poverty and declining aid.

97 percent of people in northwestern Syria live in extreme poverty, and more than two-thirds of the four million people living there are internally displaced. yes the last stronghold of the opposition in a country devastated by the war, and parts of it still facing Syrian and Russian forces with regular airstrikes.

In addition to funding gaps for humanitarian organizations and UN agencies, the Turkish outflow currency crisis has added years of misery.

Local volunteer groups told Al Jazeera that it costs between $ 50-75 a month to keep a family warm, for most people who live on less than $ 2 a day in luxury.

“The price of gas has risen by 19% and gasoline by 36% in the last six months,” said Santana Quazi, head of the UNOCHA Turkish office.

“It tends to burn any material that people may find heated, sometimes including hazardous materials that cause toxic fumes when smoked, such as plastic bags.”

More than two million people need better shelter, Quazi said, because many of the tents were old and could no longer help families survive the winter.

Local volunteer groups say it costs $ 50-75 a month to keep a family warm, a luxury most people can’t afford. [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]

Sultan al-Douhan says it is already expensive to get enough food and water for his family. And like most other families in the camp, she can’t afford enough firewood and diesel to keep her family warm.

“We lived in the house and when we saw it snowing outside, we were very happy. We had a great time and we played outside with our family, ”al-Douhan told Al Jazeera. “But not already when we fall into this hole.”

The UN has so far reached 260,000 internally displaced people in northwestern Syria, and is working to reach another 848,000 in need as it tries to clear snow-covered roads.

Meanwhile, local initiatives such as the non-profit Molham Volunteering Team are trying to help families caught in storms. They say they have helped 2,000 families affected since the storm began.

“We are happy to have children, women and the elderly warm, but you also feel unhappy to see that a family with seven children can hardly move forward,” said Ahmad Nahel, a member of the organization. he told Al Jazeera. “But for now, we’re expecting more snow next week, so we’re trying to make sure we can do everything we can.”

Internally displaced Syrian families, some of whom have moved around the country several times in the past 10 years, have said they cannot live in fragile tents.

Several families told Al Jazeera they feared their shops would be flooded when the snow melted.

“Most families tell us that they don’t want to live in tents anymore, but that they want to find a way to live in regular homes,” Nahel explains. “They fight in the winter in the rain and snow, and then they have to keep up with the heat in the summer.”

People have resorted to burning any material for heat, including hazardous materials that are toxic fumes [Courtesy of Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]

Kareem Chehayebek from Beirut, Lebanon, and Ali Haj Suleiman, from the Sheikh Bilal camp in Syria.