Facing an unrelenting winter, displaced civilians living in tents in Syria's northwestern Idlib region, the last opposition bastion, burn their clothes to keep warm through the night.
Families who were forced to leave their homes due to the attacks of the Bashar Assad regime and its supporters were already struggling with poverty and now must also contend with adverse weather conditions.
Snowfall and cold weather have made the situation difficult in Idlib's tent camps, with strong winds destroying many families' tents.
In freezing temperatures, children huddle together to try to warm up, burning pieces of plastic, old shoes and scraps of wood they collect for kindling.
Living in a region where temperatures can drop to minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit), the victims of the civil war are unable to purchase fuel and are resorting to burning their clothes to heat their tents.
Adnan al-Ahmed, who fled his home in the western countryside of Hama eight years ago, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that more than 50 families' tents were destroyed due to the heavy snow, adding that residents at the camp were able to rescue the children trapped beneath the shelters at the very last moment.
"Families whose tents were destroyed took shelter with their neighbors, and the population in tents increased. We burn our clothes to keep warm," he said.
Al-Ahmed noted that sick children were unable to get to the hospital since the roads were closed due to the heavy snowfall, essentially trapping them at the camp.
Emphasizing that his only wish is to return to his home and be warm with his children, the father called for help.
Khalid al-Sheikh, who migrated from the western countryside of Hama, recalled the tents collapsing over their heads and also noted how close of a call it was rescuing the children.
"We can't sleep at night because of the cold. We have no food and no fuel. I'm asking for help from all the benefactors, for the poor living in tents," he said.
The latest storm has piled misery on war-ravaged Syria's northern refugee camps, where most of the displaced live in tents, many of which are collapsing under the weight of snow. Other areas are enduring heavy rains or freezing temperatures.
Many of Syria's nearly 3 million displaced people face dire winter conditions with a bitter snowstorm hammering the region, the United Nations warned last week, as it urged the international community to do more to protect them. It also stated that nearly 1,000 tents hosting displaced civilians collapsed due to snowfall in northwestern Syria.
"It’s a real disaster zone," said Mark Cutts, the U.N. deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis who is in charge of cross-border aid operations from Turkey to the northwest.
Turkish aid agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continue to assist those in urgent need in northwestern Syria. Many Turkish NGOs and state agencies including the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) and Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) keep providing vital humanitarian aid and conducting humanitarian efforts in the region hosting nearly 4 million people.
The Idlib region, where the 2.8 million displaced persons live, is the last Syrian enclave to oppose the regime in Damascus. Humanitarian aid reaches them mainly through the Turkey-Syria border under special U.N. authorization free from interference from Damascus, which expires in July.
Idlib falls within a de-escalation zone forged under an agreement between Turkey and Russia in March 2020. However, the Syrian regime has consistently violated the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.
Since April 2018, attacks on Idlib, the last opposition stronghold, have dramatically intensified, causing new waves of refugees to flow toward the Turkish border and putting the country – which already hosts 3.7 million Syrian refugees – in a difficult position.