Lebanon minister appeals for winter aid for Syrian refugees

 
 
BEIRUT (The Daily Star)- Education Minister Elias Bou Saab called Wednesday on the international community to follow the example of the United Arab Emirates, which is airlifting emergency winter aid to Syrian refugees in Lebanon as a fierce storm batters the country.

“All other states that could help in these conditions should endeavor to assist,” Bou Saab said after meeting with Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Abdul-Latif Derian.

The education minister’s comments come a day after UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan ordered an emergency airlift of blankets, winter clothes, medicine, food and heaters to refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, Gaza and other parts of Palestine, according to a report published by The National. The first flight was due to take off in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

According to Bou Saab, as long as Syrian refugees are present in Lebanon then the country is obliged to fulfill its humanitarian duty toward them.

It remains unknown whether or not the aid has arrived to camps in Lebanon. The UNHCR could not be reached for comment.

A snow storm sweeping the Levant region has already taken its toll on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, who are facing freezing temperatures, heavy snow, hail, rain and thunderstorms.

At least four Syrian refugee children in a tented settlement in Bar Elias in the Bekaa were rushed to hospital for hypothermia Wednesday, a source at the camp told The Daily Star. Snow caused several tents to collapse, as refugees tried to keep warm inside their unheated shelters by burning lumber and waste paper.

Several refugee families had their tents blown down by strong winds that battered Lebanon overnight and had to seek shelter with other refugees.

In east Lebanon, three Syrians, including an 8-year-old boy, died in the storm in the outskirts of Shebaa in Mount Hermon on the Syrian border.

Lebanon is hosting more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees who had fled the raging conflict at home, now in its fourth year. The majority live in make-shift camps in extremely harsh conditions without proper sanitation or heating.