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Winter weather killed 15 displaced children in Syria: UN
BEIRUT, Jan 15, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Freezing temperatures and the lack of
medical care have killed at least 15 displaced Syrian children in recent
weeks, the United Nations reported on Tuesday.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said eight of them had died as a result of
the cold in the Rukban camp in southeastern Syria and seven others during the
displacement from the jihadist bastion of Hajin, further north.
“Freezing temperatures and harsh living conditions in Rukban… are
increasingly putting children’s lives at risk,” UNICEF regional director
Geert Cappelaere said.
“In just one month, at least eight children — most of them under four
months and the youngest only one hour old — have died,” he said.
Cappelaere explained that the cold in the isolated desert camp on the
Jordanian border, where 80 percent of the 45,000 residents are women and
children, was increasing infant mortality.
The cold snap that has hit the region is also having dire consequences on
the people fleeing the fighting in the so-called Hajin pocket in eastern
Syria.
The area near the Iraqi border has seen intense fighting between Islamic
State group jihadists defending the last remnants of their “caliphate” and
Kurdish-led forces backed by US air strikes.
According to the UN, more than 10,000 people have fled the area since
December.
“Families seeking safety face difficulties leaving the conflict zone and
wait in the cold for days without shelter or basic supplies,” Cappelaere
said.
“The dangerous and difficult journey has reportedly killed seven children –
– most of them under one-year-old” in Hajin, he said.
According to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces battling the
jihadists and to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, significant numbers
of IS members have attempted to blend in with fleeing civilians.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1618 hrs