Rare Middle East snow kills five, but silences Syrian guns
There have been appeals to the international community for help after a snowstorm killed at least five people in the Middle East.
Those making the calls include Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group.
The Syrian National Coalition’s interim premier, Ahmad Touma, said in Istanbul that the situation on the ground is “catastrophic” because of low temperatures and lack of tents in refugee camps.
The storm killed three Syrians in Lebanon, and two in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo yesterday.
The wintry weather, which struck much of the Middle East on Tuesday, mostly silenced the guns in Syria and grounded government war planes because of bad visibility.
The interim premier, Mr Touma, said that over the past two months alone, some 2,000 families have fled the violence and that 800 of them are without shelter.
