Syria calls EU for help

The Syrian authorities on Tuesday asked the European Union to help combat forest fires in the coastal province of Latakia, which have been raging for six days and have already devastated about 100 km2 of wooded areas, according to the U.N.

"We have asked for EU help to fight the fires," said Syria's Emergency Situations and Catastrophes Minister, Raed al-Saleh, as quoted by official media.

Planes sent by Cyprus are expected Tuesday to help contain the fires, he added.

Firefighting teams from Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon have already joined their Syrian counterparts, facing particularly difficult conditions: high temperatures, strong winds, steep mountainous terrain, and the presence of mines in a country scarred by years of war.

According to Minister Saleh, "weather conditions are significantly contributing to the spread of the fires."

"Strong winds extended the fires overnight to Ghassanieh, a village in the Latakia region," where rescuers managed to evacuate women and children and contain the fire with the help of residents, he said.

The fires "have reduced to ashes about 100 square kilometers of forest and farmland, which represents more than 3 percent of Syria's total forest cover," said the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Syria to AFP.

According to this source, about 5,000 people have been affected by these fires in the Latakia region where several localities have been evacuated.

The fires have not caused any casualties.

Nearly seven months after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad, Syria remains deeply scarred by more than a decade of war that has ravaged its economy and infrastructure.

As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of droughts and fires worldwide, Syria has also been affected by heat waves and low precipitation.

In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told AFP that Syria had "not experienced such poor weather conditions in 60 years."