Three people have perished in Syria since Friday in huge forest fires that also affected neighboring Lebanon, with firefighters still trying to tame them.
"
Syria
is on fire," we read on images and videos circulating on social networks, while Syrian state television has been broadcasting since Saturday morning images of the fires which have spread over hundreds of hectares of wooded areas.
Three people have died since Friday in Latakia, in western Syria, according to a new report given on Saturday by the Ministry of Health which also identified 70 cases of suffocation.
Dozens of fires broke out in Syria on Friday, particularly affecting the regions of Latakia, as well as Tartous (west) and Homs (center), according to Syrian Minister of Agriculture Mohamad Hassane Katna.
On their Facebook page, firefighters in the city of Latakia said they were "
facing the biggest series of fires that have ever occurred in the province
" of the same name.
Several families fled residential areas near the fires, according to local media.
According to the official agency Sana, houses burned down in the town of Banias, in the province of Tartous.
In Lebanon too, more than a hundred fires have broken out since Thursday.
"
The situation is insane, fires are everywhere,
" the director of Lebanese civil defense operations, Georges Abou Moussa, told AFP.
Although most of the fires have been brought under control, some fires are still raging in the regions of Chouf (south) and Akkar (north), "
difficult to reach
", according to Abou Moussa.
"
Wind and heat contribute to the spread of fires,
" he added, unable to determine the cause of their outbreak.
In October 2019, large-scale forest fires broke out in Lebanon, fueling the anger of the population at a state devoid of suitable equipment and accused of corruption and incompetence.
These fires would have been one of the multiple factors triggering the unprecedented popular uprising against the Lebanese political class a year ago.
Several fires have also broken out in recent days in Israel, neighboring Syria and Lebanon, leading to the evacuation of thousands of people according to the authorities.