BEKAA, Lebanon, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Hasnia Rafeh, a displaced Syrian from the devastated city of Homs, holds her eight-month-old child while waiting in a long queue at a mobile clinic to consult a doctor, which arrived in Lebanon's Bekaa villages once every two or three weeks.
The mobile clinic, operated by a female doctor, is tasked with treating the minor health problems of the displaced Syrians and providing them with the necessary drugs.
"We are passing through a miserable living condition and we stand in queue for almost two hours before being treated by the doctor who simply prescribes a cheap antibiotic syrup or pain killers," Hasnia told Xinhua.
"The cold and sickness joined to aggravate our misery and all we manage to do is pray for patience," she told Xinhua, complaining that her family lives in a small room of no more than 10 square meters.
She added that in order to protect her children from the harsh winter cold, she uses an old stove and alternates with her husband to collect firewood in nearby fields.
For his part, Hussam Al Ouaik, another Syrian refugee from Damascus neighborhood, told Xinhua that "When the night temperature drops to below zero, it is like mother nature is conspiring against us and adding more misery to our life."
He said he works at a mosque garden for a monthly salary of 300 U.S. dollars, but it is not enough to feed his family of five and afford the heating fuel.
He pointed out that to fight cold, his family is using the blankets they received from the aid agencies, gathering in a small room, and using plastic bags to fill in the ceiling cracks to prevent the rain-water into the room.
For his part, Mahmoud al-Ali, who registered his family and his brother's family on the list of the displaced with the UN agency, is receiving a monthly aid that is barely enough for him and his family to survive.
He said that the heating fuel is so expensive that he only uses the stove at night for one hour only, adding that they are living in a small room with a bathroom being 15 meters away, which has to be shared by another five families of around 46 people.
According to the UN statistics on Sunday, more than 283,000 Syrian refugees are currently seeking shelter in Lebanon, and the Bekaa regions alone host more than 71,000 refugees.
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