Agencies/Cairo/Beirut
The winter storm battering the eastern Mediterranean has brought misery to tens of
thousands of displaced Syrians, but a group that tallies deaths in the country’s conflict
said yesterday it had also brought about a rare respite from fighting.
With rain, snow and high winds assailing the war-torn country, the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said that, for the first time in three years, it had documented no direct
deaths from fighting or bombardment on Wednesday.
The storm has caused its own victims, however, with four Syrians in total dying in
neighbouring Lebanon and two inside northern Syria as a result of weather conditions, the
Britain-based group said.
A Beirut-based spokesman for the UN refugee agency said they were concerned about the
prospect of another night of freezing temperatures.
There were up to 50cm of snow in parts of the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon, where
Syrian refugees are living in “rough” conditions in some 800 informal settlements, Ron
Redmond of UNHCR said.
Local municipalities were distributing winter aid that UNHCR had put in position ahead of
the storm, Redmond said, and three had asked for additional supplies.
In the mountain town of Arsal near the Syrian border, refugees were moving into a
collective shelter and a local NGO was distributing 10,000 hot meals daily, he added.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said it has been unable to get a
desperately needed medical aid convoy through to civilians in the rebel-held part of
Aleppo despite a government promise last month to give it access.
In a statement this week, the WHO said 240,000 medical treatments from it and the Syrian
Arab Red Crescent were being held in a warehouse in the government-held part of the city,
Syria’s biggest, “for further distribution to the targeted areas, which will begin
shortly”.
On December 22, the WHO said it had received a promise to be allowed to deliver aid to
rebel-held parts of Aleppo, which it planned to transport within the week, and also to the
besieged districts of Mouadamiya, in Damascus, and Eastern Ghouta, outside the capital.
The non-governmental Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations, made up of Syrian
doctors, says cholera, typhoid, scabies and tuberculosis are spreading among the 360,000
people in rebel-held Aleppo for lack of treatments or vaccines. The area is cut off on
three sides by the Syrian army.
All sides in Syria’s three-year civil war have prevented medical supplies crossing front
lines, fearing they could be used to help wounded enemy fighters.
The WHO says surgical supplies such as syringes and bandages have previously been removed
from convoys at checkpoints run by the security forces.
Syrian officials could not be reached for comment. Damascus denies blocking aid.
The UN says at least 212,000 people remain besieged, mostly by the government, but also by
insurgents.
More than 200,000 people
have been killed in Syria’s
conflict, which began in March 2011
with popular protests against President Bashar al-Assad and spiralled into civil war after
a crackdown by security forces.
Local enjoy the snow in front of the ruins of the Roman Temples of Bacchus at the historical ruins of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.
