In northern Syria’s Deir Ballut displacement camp, hundreds of families from several Syrian regions are suffering from the extreme winter cold.
The heavy rainfall and cold winds have penetrated their tents in the camp near the northern city of Afrin, close to the Turkish border.
Abu Ala, a father of six children, told Reuters: “They brought us to an unknown place…The situation is very bad.”
Deir Ballut hosts more than 350 families who have fled the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, in addition to some other Syrians who escaped from southern Damascus.
The Yarmouk camp was once Syria’s biggest Palestinian refugee camp, home to around 160,000 people, before the Syrian regime placed its hands on it following a deal with armed opposition groups.
The groups controlled the camp in 2012 as a potential forward base in their campaign to unseat Bashar Assad. But ISIS militants took over much of the camp in 2015, forcing many residents to flee.
“Many people here live with limited resources, including food, medicine, winter clothes and fuel,” said Abboud, a Palestinian refugee who has fled with his family from Yarmouk.
“Our situation is tragic… we are 350 families from the Yarmouk camp,” he said. “We were surprised to see tents while we were told we’ll be living in houses.”
The stormy weather affected around 11 camps in the northwest of Syria, close to the border with Turkey. Those include the camps of Atma, Karama, Hoda, Omar in the countryside of Idlib, in addition to the area of Khirbet al-Joz in the countryside of Latakia.
