Two children have died in a fire in the Erîşa camp for displaced persons in north-eastern Syria. The fire broke out on Monday in the tent of an Arab family from Deir ez-Zor and was probably caused by the explosion of a gas oven. The two siblings, a five-month-old infant and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, suffered severe burns. They were taken to a health station run by the Kurdish Red Crescent organisation Heyva Sor a Kurd, but succumbed to their injuries there.

The fire brigade was quickly on the scene and extinguished the fire before the flames could spread to other tents. Investigators are now to clarify how exactly the fire could have started. Teams of NGOs active in the camp are providing psychological support to the children's parents and helping them to relocate to new accommodation.

The fire did not come as a surprise. Fires break out again and again in the IDP camps in the autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria, some of which are deadly. The refugees have to keep warm by fires in winter and cook with gas burners. In some areas, the fire brigade often has problems extinguishing fires because Turkey uses water as a weapon of war and regularly restricts the flow of the Euphrates massively via dam systems.