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Syrian Activist: 'They Are Using Food as Weapon of War'

Heather Murdock

   ISTANBUL - Many of the tents here are sewn together by hand, and women
   cook on homemade stoves made out of rocks.

   It looks like 100 years ago, but it is actually an ordinary day in
   northwestern Syria near the Turkish border. Umm Abdou, a mother of
   eight, came here a year ago. She says her family stayed in their
   village as long as possible, sleeping outside during the shelling after
   being displaced three other times.

   "We saw death in front of our eyes," she says. "The last time we fled,
   I was surprised we didn't die."

   Death is still on her mind, however, as food aid is reduced, and the
   coronavirus pandemic reaches the area. If the virus becomes widespread,
   experts say, the mortality rate could be "drastically higher" here than
   almost anywhere else.

   Northwestern Syria is awash with crowded displacement camps and more
   than 4.1 million people, after the biggest single exodus in Syria's
   nearly decade-long conflict began in Idlib late last year.

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