Fires leave charred land, thousands of displaced in Syria

Fires leave charred land, thousands of displaced in Syria

DAMASCUS - Even brought under control, fires in Syria have ravaged people's lives and caused vast dalage to agricultural land.

Suhail Deeb was eager to harvest his olives before sweeping forest fires that ravaged parts of Syria at the weekend left him with nothing but charred trunks and branches.

“I used to have 100 trees, but now nothing is left,” said the 61-year-old farmer at his blackened olive grove in the western province of Tartus.

“Everything has turned to ashes,” he said, sadly snapping a soot-covered, dead branch off a tree.

Blazes broke out Friday in the provinces of Homs, Tartus and Latakia, destroying over 9,000 hectares of agricultural and forested land, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The wildfires killed three people in Latakia and displaced thousands across the