Deadly fire hits Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon

At least one child has died after a big fire engulfed a camp for hundreds of Syrian refugees in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, according to aid workers, who believe that there may be two more casualties.

Flames and thick clouds of black smoke rose on Sunday from the site near the town of Qab Elias, which is an hour’s drive from the capital, Beirut, while exploding gas canisters could be heard from a distance.

The blaze, which destroyed about 100 tents, also left at least six people injured, according to the Red Cross. Emergency workers said the fire had turned the tent camp into “ashes,” with only the bathrooms at the edge of the settlement left standing.

Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyaz, reporting from the scene, described scenes of “utter devastation”.

“This is really quite shocking for refugees,” he said. “These are people who fled war and conflict, people who left behind their homes, and the homes they built here from bits of wood and sheets of plastic have been reduced to ashes.”

“First responders told us they believe this fire was started by some sort of cooking accident,” he continued. “They believe one of the residents of this camp had been cooking food inside their home and that it had somehow caught fire.”

The fire spread rapidly and all that is left is smouldering ruins, he added.

“We’ve started the assessment as to how many tents have been damaged. As soon as the assessment is done we will provide the families with all the help they need,” Dana Sleiman, spokesperson for the United Nations’ refugee agency, said.

Al Jazeera’s Tyab said that aid agencies were on their way to the camp to provide immediate emergency assistance, but the scale of the disaster meant that several hundred people had lost all their belongings in just a matter of minutes.

“It’s going to be a very challenging logistical situation for this aid agencies to try to find places for people to live, clothing for them and all the things that they have lost in this fire,” he said.

“These Syrian refugees, who already fled their homes from the fighting, had very little to begin with - but now they have nothing.”

Lebanon is hosting at least one million Syrian refugees officially registered with the UN, many of them living in informal tented settlements scattered around the country.

But the government says the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is closer to 1.5 million.

Source: Al Jazeera