9 January 2015
The worst storm that Lebanon has seen for a decade has buried hundreds of thousands of ill-prepared Syrian refugees in deep snow.
Hanan and three friends busily packed their buckets with snow and upturned them to make turrets for the fortress they were building.
It was a moment of innocent relief for the children who - all under eight years old - have spent half their lives enduring the violence and deprivation of war.
But in the tent just behind them, its sides buried in snow, Hanan’s mother was in a state of despair.
The most violent storm to hit Lebanon in more than a decade has caused chaos in the refugee camp that she has called home for the last two years since she and her family fled the war in neighbouring Syria.
The oil for her small stove, the only source of heat in her canvas tent, had burned out and there was no money to buy more. Her blankets and mattresses were soacked after the roof her tent partially collapsed under the weight of the snow. Puddles of water had gathered in the gaps between the tent and floor.
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