Syria: Displaced children run after rubbish truck scavenging for food

Displaced Syrian children have resorted to sifting through rubbish to look for food in the liberated territories of north-west Syria due to a shortage of humanitarian aid.

In a video posted on Tuesday by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, children can be seen running behind a rubbish truck transporting waste to a local landfill area in the opposition-held province of Idlib. The drone footage then shows the children gathering around the household waste and searching for food.

SNHR received a video filmed on Dec1, showing children chasing a tractor taking waste to a landfill amid IDPs camps in Idlib to scavenge for food.SNHR affirms at least 1.5 million of the displaced in NW #Syria are children, who are the worst affected grouphttps://t.co/xfgRrksXzs pic.twitter.com/d5KTZpYQTy

— Syrian Network (@snhr) December 3, 2020

The camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) shown in the video is Halab Lebih, which is near Al-Bashir camp east of the village of Kafr Lusin in northern Idlib.

The shortage in aid and basic essentials has caused the humanitarian situation in the north and north-west of Syria to deteriorate even more over recent months.

With states like Russia and China supporting the Assad regime by voting to close most of the humanitarian border crossings from Turkey into Syria this year, aid to civilians has been severely limited. Only one of the four border crossings now remains open, further threatening the livelihood of the IDPs who live in camps and who are predicted to suffer greatly this winter from food and fuel shortages.

Out of the estimated 3 million displaced civilians in Idlib, pushed there by the regime’s failed offensive in 2019-20, an estimated 1.5 million are children. They are deemed to be most at risk and particularly vulnerable.

READ: Winter is coming, but internally displaced persons in Syria are not prepared