Mountain snowstorm kills 10 Syrians trying to flee into Lebanon

Ten Syrians died trying to flee their war-torn country into neighbouring Lebanon after they were caught in a fierce snowstorm, the Lebanese army and civil defence said on Friday.

“They died of the cold. They were two children, six women and two men,” said Georges Abou Moussa, head of operations at the Lebanese civil defence.

Rescue workers and Lebanese troops retrieved the bodies together.

The army said it received a tip on Friday morning that a group of Syrian refugees had become stuck in snow while trying to cross the mountainous frontier between the two countries.

“An army patrol found the bodies of nine refugees who died as a result of the snow. It rescued six others, one of whom died in the hospital as a result of frostbite,” it said.

Troops also arrested two Syrians who were involved in trying to smuggle the refugees across the border near Masnaa.

Lebanon, a country of four million, hosts more than one million Syrians who have sought refuge from the war in their homeland since 2011 – the second-largest population of Syrian refugees in the region and the highest per capita population of refugees in the world.

The government estimates the number to be 1.5 million.

In 2016, Lebanese authorities sent hundreds of Syrians travelling through Beirut airport back to Syria without assessing the risks they could face on their return.

Many live in tented settlements

The army said it got a tip that refugees had become stuck in snow while trying to cross the mountainous frontier

in the country’s east and struggle to stay warm in the winter. Lebanon and Syria share a 330-kilometre border with no official demarcation at several points.

For several years after Syria’s uprising began, refugees flowed into Lebanon.

But Lebanese authorities introduced restrictions in 2015 to curb the number entering.