Syrian refugees find weather harsh

Harsh weather in recent days has compounded the misery of Syrian refugees spending the winter in tents in northern Jordan after fleeing violence back home.

Zaartari refugee camp close to the Syrian border has been hit by freezing temperatures, torrential rain and strong winds.

Some tents have been flooded and others blown over, forcing families to evacuate in temperatures that have dipped below freezing at night.

Children have been having fun in the wintry weather, making snowmen and throwing snowballs, but many adults are complaining that they have not been given blankets and heaters to ward off the cold.

"I haven't received any heater yet. I'm dying here," said Khaled Kassab, a refugee from the town of Hirak in Syria's southern Daraa province.

Torrential rains have flooded some 200 tents over the past four days.

A camp spokesman said that by Wednesday, some 1,500 refugees had been displaced within the camp and were now living in mobile homes normally used for schools.

Ghazi Sarhan, a spokesman for the Jordanian Hashemite Charitable Organisation, which runs the camp, said they had implemented an emergency plan three days ago and had started distributing 10,000 blankets, as well as heaters and gas cylinders.

Some 50,000 Syrian refugees are sheltering in the Zaatari camp in Jordan's northern desert.

Most of the camp's residents are children under age 18 and women.

They are some of the more than 280,000 Syrians who fled to Jordan since the uprising against Syria's President Bashar Assad broke out in March 2011.

As the fighting has increased in recent weeks, the number of displaced has risen.

About half-a-million Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries including Turkey and Lebanon to escape the civil war that has killed an estimated 60,000 people in nearly two years of fighting.