SIDON, Lebanon: A Palestinian who fled Syria seeking refuge in Lebanon committed suicide overnight apparently after receiving news that his mother’s health was rapidly deteriorating while at a hospital in Damascus, his wife said Wednesday.

“My husband is gone. He left me with four girls,” said Rima Bakari, carrying her 8-month-old daughter in her arms, her three other young daughters standing nearby.

Bakari said her husband, Mohammad Maarouf al-Misilbi, was found hanged to death inside an abandoned room at the top of a house in Sidon’s Palestinian Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp.

She said the family rented the house after they fled the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus three months ago.

Bakari said the reason behind her husband’s suicide was possibly linked to news that his mother’s health was rapidly deteriorating.

“My mother-in-law, who has a heart disease, fled Syria with us, but we had to send her back to a hospital in Syria because hospital bills are very costly here,” she said.

Over 200,000 refugees, including 10,000 Palestinians, have sought shelter in Lebanon since the outbreak of violence in neighboring Syria in March 2011.