Torrential rains hit northern Syria over the past two days, knocking tents to the ground and worsening the already harsh situation of people living in camps for the internally displaced. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist group, reported Sunday that 48 hours of heavy rain had inundated and destroyed “hundreds of tents and cause[d] a new disaster to thousands of the displaced people in the Syrian North’s camps.”
Camps in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib and Latakia were affected by the storms, the Observatory reported.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, some 8,000 families, or 40,000 people, were reported to be affected by the storms in Idlib province, with “considerable damage in camps.” The agency said around 40 villages were reportedly flooded in northeast Syria’s Hassakeh province, with houses collapsed and “hundreds of acres of crops ... swept away.”
