Syrians in Idlib camps struggle to survive amid sweltering temperatures

Forcibly displaced civilians in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province are struggling to survive in makeshift tents as the summer temperatures rise higher than the seasonal average.

The heat wave, a global phenomenon in recent days, has adversely affected the lives of millions of civilians who took shelter in Idlib after fleeing the war in Syria.

In Idlib, where the majority of the civilians live in makeshift tents, the temperature rises to 40 degrees Celsius , making the living conditions unbearable for around four million Syrian civilians in the region.

Families have no access to electricity and suffer from water shortage.

“There is no electricity, so the cooling fans do not work either. We get exhausted from the heat and are having difficult times,” Abdurrahman Raad, who took refuge in the Azraq refugee camp near the Turkish border, told Anadolu Agency.

“In tents covered with plastic, we cannot protect ourselves from the heat in the summer or the cold in the winter,” he said.

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Mariam Sattouf, who fled the southeastern countryside of Idlib three years ago due to the intense attacks of the Syrian regime forces and Russia, said that the tents they live in are not suitable for the weather conditions of any season.

“We have to make our kids take a shower to keep them cool. The temperature is well above 40C. Imagine a life in a nylon tent,” she added.

The Syrian civil war began in 2011 when the Bashar Al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protesters.

According to UN estimates, hundreds of thousands of people have since been killed and millions displaced.

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