Feature: In Lebanon, snow storm makes Syrian refugees' life even worse

Syrian refugees in Lebanon have already been living in harsh conditions. However, a new threat is coming.

A snow storm named "Zina" is impacting Lebanon, bringing heavy rains and snowfalls at low altitudes, and bringing down the temperatures to extremely low levels.

The storm is caused by a polar low depression crossing most of the east Mediterranean countries, blocking most of Lebanon's roads over 700 meters of altitude, and causing heavy damages to electricity and mobile phones networks.

Meteorologists expect the storm to continue to affect Lebanon during the coming days and snow fall will reach altitudes as low as 400 meters above the sea level.

The randomly built camps where many Syrian refugees taking shelter were badly damaged by the storm and the freezing conditions. And the bad condition led to the death of 10-year-old Hiba Abdel Ghani in the eastern Bekaa camp region.

Abdel Rahman al-Ali, who fled his devastated town of Idlib, told Xinhua "It is an extremely strong storm and a potential killer."

He added, while trying to move the snow which accumulated over his meager tent erected in the plains of Ghaza in the Western Bekaa, "I fear the snow will destroy our tent and it will fall over my seven children who are shivering from the bitter cold as temperatures reached -4 degrees Celsius."

He asserted "we are in real fear of the impact of the storm not to mention the displacement that is already weighing heavily on us."

Halima Aboul Saoud, displaced from the Damascus neighborhood, said "as if our miserable lives are not enough, we need a storm to top it off."

She told Xinhua "Everyone is ill, the cold is bombarding us and 'General Snow' is a tough enemy we cannot confront. We are headed towards an abyss."

But Shadia al-Oudaimi looks in better shape seeing as her tent is equipped with a fireplace and enough wood to keep her and her family warm.

"I spent most of last week picking wood in preparation for the storm with my five children. Even though the tent is warm, I still fear the winds tearing it apart," she said, pointing to other tents shredded by the windy conditions of the storm.

"If it continues this way, we will have to find safer shelter," she added.

Abdel Hamid Abou Lteif, who was from Aleppo, said he is short of heating oil, as the quantity he received from the UN Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) "vanished in a week."

He clarified that "wooden sticks are hard to find nearby as refugees were hurriedly picking up what they could find in the remaining few sunny days."

He added "the cold could lead to serious diseases for our children as most of their clothes were drenched by the rain inside the tents."

"We asked the UNHCR last week to provide us with plastic covers for our tents but they refused claiming a shortage in funds," he complained.

According to the Ministry of Social affairs, there are currently over 1400 randomly set-up camps in Lebanon where even the minimum sanitary conditions for the refugees are not met.

The latest UNHCR report said the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon reached 1.2 million, discounting unregistered ones. Endit