Winter weather in the Middle East

By: Dori Jenkins

Millions of people have fled the Middle Eastern country of Syria to escape the civil war that’s been raging there for the past four years. Many now live in refugee camps in nearby nations, such as Jordan and Lebanon. Although safely away from the fighting, the refugees recently faced another threat: extreme winter weather. This brings more problems to the families who are stuck away from their homes and are already forced to live in tents.

Earlier this month, powerful storms swept across the Middle East, bringing high winds, frigid temperatures, and heavy rain and snow. The weather has made life even more difficult for people like the nearly 85,000 Syrians living in Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp.

The storms caused many of the tents families use as makeshift homes to collapse and knocked out electricity to parts of Za’atari. The rain and melted snow also flooded streets around the camp. A Seckman High School sophomore, Ashlee Taylor, says, “I cannot believe how harsh the weather is and how it is affecting to people in the surrounding areas. The people should be in more safe tents during this awful time.”

“Being in a camp is already not a comfortable situation,” says Nasreddine Touaibia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “If you add to it this extreme weather, the situation now is pretty bad.”

With nowhere else to go, refugees living in Za’atari were forced to relocate to emergency shelters or move in with friends and relatives. They will remain there until UNHCR teams can make repairs around the camp and provide replacement tents. “Times like this are when we need to help out one another because no children or families deserve be stuck out in the freezing cold weather,” says a Seckman High School Sophomore, Caleb Potter.