I pity the Syrian refugees who are currently settled in Lebanon's Bekaa valley after reading the article “Syria refugees scramble to prepare for winter” (Nov. 24). It would be a nightmare for them when “temperatures will dip and snow will blanket fields that house hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees”. The article said that their shelters “are no more than wooden frames covered with tarpaulins, or in some cases, plastic sacks sewn into patchwork quilt roof”. It's a pity that so many people have to suffer just because of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's obstinacy not to step down from power despite the fact that the majority of the Syrian population want him to leave to end the more than a year of insurgency that has divided the country and caused sufferings to so many Syrians. We know that more than a million have left the country because of the civil war that started just as pockets of protests to call for reforms. Instead of listening to the demands of the people, Al-Assad had decided to attack the demonstrators and subjected them to so much sufferings for the sake of his ambition to stay as the country's ruler for the rest of his life. Al-Assad should have listened to the counsel of its former allies in the Middle East to step down and allow a new democratic government to be formed and prevent more bloodshed but the high-handed dictator would rather have his own people exterminated than to relinquish power that his family has held on to steadfastly. As ti is now, it looks that the civil war, which has already killed more than hundred of thousands of Syrians, mostly civilians, will continue for a long time and exact its toll on the hapless civilians who have to flee from the war only to face more hardships in their struggle to live in foreign lands. The West should bear the blame for their sufferings for not listening to the pleadings of the rebels to strike the military arsenals of the Syrian regime and put a quick end to the civil strife. An expat, by email.
