By the time NGO workers arrived at the camp in the Al-Rawda area the next day to evacuate them to temporary shelter in a school near Barr Elias, Hussein said, she was desperate, terrified that her son's condition would become critical or that the family would be electrocuted by currents carried in the rising water.
Refugee settlements in the Bekaa and northern Lebanon struggle with winter storms every year, but this year, refugees and aid workers said, harsher than usual weather, increasing poverty and shrinking aid budgets have come together in a dangerous nexus.
At least 361 camps and 11,300 refugees had been affected by the storm as of Wednesday, according to a UNHCR assessment.
A recently released U.N. report assessing the vulnerability of Syrian refugees in Lebanon found that the proportion of refugees living in "nonresidential or nonpermanent structures," including tents, garages and buildings under construction, had increased from 26 percent in 2017 to 34 percent in 2018 .
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