People in Idlib, northwestern Syria, stormed a warehouse on February 19, looting its contents of humanitarian aid, video provided to Storyful shows. In the video, by Abu Ehab, a Syrian man who was present in the warehouse, people can be seen carrying off boxes of supplies. Ehab, who filmed the video in selfie mode, can be heard saying that people were storming the warehouse after waiting for six hours in line. “After standing for hours at the gates of the relief center, they decided to storm the warehouse because of the widespread corruption in the relief NGOs in the area,” he told Storyful. On February 17, the United Nations said that 900,000 people had been displaced by the conflict in northwestern Syria since December 2019; the vast majority are women and children. Mark Lowcock, UN humanitarian affairs chief, warned that the crisis had reached a “horrifying new level”. “They are traumatized and forced to sleep outside in freezing temperatures because camps are full," he stated. “Mothers are burning plastic to keep children warm” and “babies and small children are dying because of the cold." Credit: Abu Ehab via Storyful
