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Ghouta residents burn broken doors to stave off winter cold

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: “The doors of destroyed houses have […]


9 December 2014

DoorsofDestroyedHouses

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: “The doors of destroyed houses have become firewood because of the lack of fuel for heating,” reads the caption on this picture from East Ghouta’s Hamuriya district, which circulated on social media Monday.

Residents of the encircled, rebel-held East Ghouta suburbs have turned to increasingly desperate measures to heat themselves as winter sets in. “Wood from trees, furniture, plastic, trash and animal dung” are all now used as fuel, a local Douma resident told Syria Direct.

Compounding the difficulties of keeping warm under a suffocating siege, many residents’ windows and doors have been destroyed by regime shelling, Marwa, a resident of East Ghouta, told Syria Direct Tuesday.

Some have taken to using pieces of cloth or plastic bags to cover the gaps in their walls, she added.

Marwa said she cannot afford firewood, even the kind made from furniture as pictured above. Instead, she buys clothes in bulk, for approximately $.10 per kilogram, and burns those instead.

Syria’s official news agency SANA published an article about citizens using firewood for heating, but says it is partly out of nostalgia and a desire to return to a simpler past.

-December 9, 2014

-Photo courtesy of @Amerkhattaab.

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