Fire kills at least nine Syrian refugees in Lebanon

Beirut (dpa) - A blaze swept across Syrian refugees‘ tents in Lebanon on Thursday, killing at least nine of them, activists and the Lebanese Red Cross said."Our teams on the ground have removed six dead bodies so far from the Gaza refugee camp located in the western Bekaa region," George Katteneh, the Secretary General of the Lebanese Red cross, told dpa.Syrian activists in the Bekaa region in eastern Lebanon said the death toll had reached nine and it was likely to increase as there were other people suffering from serious burns.They added that 60 tents in the camp were totally destroyed because of the fire whose cause was not clear yet.The Bekaa region, which is close to the Syrian border, hosts several informal camps for Syrian refugees, who have escaped a devastating civil war in their homeland.Lebanon hosts more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees.Similar incidents had previously taken place in some of the Syrian refugee camps especially in winter.