Storm brings misery to Syrian refugees

Agencies/Cairo/BeirutThe 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.