Fire guts Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon

By Wassim Saif al-Din

BEIRUT (AA) – An early-morning fire destroyed several tents in a Syrian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.

The fire broke out inside the 23-tent camp in al-Wazzani camp, destroying 15 tents, according to an Anadolu Agency reporter in the area.
He said a heater had caused the blaze.

No injuries were reported in the fire, which has left around 60 people homeless.

Lebanese authorities have yet to issue an official statement on the fire.

The camp is home to nearly 8,000 refugees from next-door Syria, which fell into civil war in 2011 when Syrian regime forces violently cracked down on pro-democracy protests, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions.

Lebanon took in around 1.5 million Syrian refugees at the height of the Syrian civil war.

There are around 998,000 registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).