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Displaced families struggle to cope with brutal temperatures

Like every year, summer brings the most difficulties and imposes severe challenges on the displaced in northwestern amid lack of means for cooling and the scarcity of water which increases their suffering.

Abu Mohamed al-Hamwi, a Syrian displaced lives in one of the random camps in the border Azaz town, says the heat is unbearable as summer temperatures passing 40 degrees Celsius outside the tents, while inside the tents are much higher. 

The tents have turned into what look like ovens, he added.

The makeshift tents are made of plastic materials and lack thermal insulators, which forces their residents to leave and live under the shade of the olive trees in the area.

According to statistics issued by the Syria Response Coordinators group, northwestern Syria contains about 1,489 camps inhabited by more than 1.5 million people, the majority of whom are women and children.

The means of cooling for the displaced people in the camps are available due to the lack of electricity, so they are trying to confront the rising temperatures by using water-dampened cloths, and placing them on their bodies and the bodies of their children, especially at peak times, to gain a little coolness.

A small group of displaced people in the camps depend on solar panels to charge the batteries needed to operate 12-volt fans, but the high prices of this system and the absence of supportive humanitarian organizations deprive many displaced people of owning and using them for cooling.

With the onset of the heat wave, the Civil Defense called on the people to take a set of preventive measures in order to avoid disasters related to high temperatures, such as not being directly exposed to the sun, especially children and the elderly, from 10 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, drinking a lot of fluids and cooling down. Children inside the camps with water, avoiding traveling by car at noon, beware of scorpions, snakes and snakes in the camps and agricultural areas, and not placing gas cylinders under the sun.

Last July, the Civil Defense Organization said about one million displaced , including 400,000 children, in the camps were suffering from lack of electricity and water scarcity and its high price. 

The Idlib region, which borders Turkey to the north and is home to more than three million people, is the last part of Syria controlled by rebel or jihadist groups.

The Syrian regime, backed by Russia and Iran, has vowed to retake the area and the enclave has shrunk under pressure from successive deadly land and air offensives.

The war has killed nearly 500,000 people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations.



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