http://youtu.be/z8MX1VaQ4z8

Amnesty International slams EU for approach toward Syrian refugees – YouTube – 12/15/2013.

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http://youtu.be/91riXUyhVIA

▶ Snow Worsens Misery for Syrian Refugees – YouTube – 12/15/2013.

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BAALBEK, Lebanon — Shivering in the snow, Syrian Aisha Mohammad looked at the last-minute charity that saved her children from freezing during the smack of a particularly tough Lebanese winter: a wood-burning stove complete with twigs and garbage to ignite in hopes of warming her drafty tent in an icy eastern plain.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon face bitter winter – The Washington Post – 12/15/2013.

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How to help Syrian refugees – CNN.com — The article lists more than a dozen major organizations involved in assistance and relief activities serving Syria’s refugee.

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Refuge | The Washington Post – features 18 refugee stories ranging from “a birth and a wedding” to a family mourning their own in a cemetery on what was to them “foreign soil”.

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Many refugees in Lebanon are living in unofficial makeshift camps, with shelters built from scavenged materials. The Lebanese government has refused to establish refugee camps for fear that they will become permanent homes for Syrians who have fled the civil war.

Images from the area showed refugees scraping snow off the roofs of tents, icicles hanging from ropes and wooden posts, and laundry frozen on washing lines.

Syrian refugees facing extreme hardship as blizzards hit region | World news | theguardian.com – 12/12/2013.

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Bulgaria: Syrian Refugees Face Appalling Conditions | Doctors Without Borders – 11/21/2013.

Syria Refugee Camps Filled With Child Deaths And Winter’s Cold – 12/16/2013.

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. . . hopes for a negotiated end (always a long shot due to Moscow’s strategic interests in Syria) are now even less likely due to the growing bad blood between the U.S. and Russia.

Why Obama vs. Putin Spells Doom For the Syrian Refugees – PolicyMic – 8/19/2013.

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Revolution?

Civil war?

Jihad front?

Cold War Extended?

Political anarchy?

To those who have fled the fighting, what the conflict in Syria is about may not matter or mean very much, if anything: they have found themselves out in the cold in numbers almost too vast to contemplate and with a distribution impossible to administer centrally through other than interstate cooperation in the matter, and that appears about as non-existent as peace or, perhaps, blankets may to those who have none.

One wonders what memories Syria’s refugees will carry with them, those who survive, for the rest of their lives?

How will they come to feel about the world that helped them?  That failed them?

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In a briefing published today, An international failure: The Syrian refugee crisis, the organization details how European Union (EU) member states have only offered to open their doors to around 12,000 of the most vulnerable refugees from Syria: just 0.5 per cent of the 2.3 million people who have fled the country.

Fortress Europe: Syrian refugee shame exposed | Amnesty International – 12/13/2013.

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▶ Snow storm causes misery for Syrian refugees – YouTube – 12/11/2013.

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When she emerged from underneath her blanket, Ghusun, who is “more than 100 years old”, turned her deeply lined face from the wind and moaned in pain from the cold.

Her small group of seven included an 87-year-old woman, four other women and one man. Each clutching old blankets to shield themselves from the bitter wind, they explained they had left their homes in the Syrian city of Homs two months ago, making their slow way to Aleppo, then finally crossing the border into Turkey just before the snow fell.

Syrian refugees face new challenge – freezing weather – 12/13/2013.

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