The UN, Denmark, Syria, and snow

(December 12, 2013)

The winter storm in Syria and Lebanon and Jordan and Palestine and Israel dominated a large chunk of BBC Arabic coverage on this day, especially as regards the refugees living in tents.

This is Dana Sleiman, live from Beirut. She is a UNHCR spokesman. I think she is my age exactly, we graduated from high school and college in the same year. We even studied the same major in college.

Besides UNHCR, she mentioned UNICEF and the Danish refugee fund as key organizations helping Syrian refugees in Lebanon. So now you know all these names and places are being mentioned in a good way to Arab audiences.

She was interviewed by Mekki Hilaal. I might have gotten his last name wrong. He is one of the BBC Arabic anchors, but I don't really like him. I forget what he did once. He's always kind of yelling at people. On this day, he just looked very disturbed about all the refugees in the snow.

The interview with Dana Sleiman was pretty long, and it was in Arabic. I think I have seen her on the BBC Arabic before. I took this screenshot in October of a lady standing in front of a UN tent or office and she was also describing the situation of the Syrian refugees. It's the same person, right?

There was a separate news clip that had a few words spoken by this lady:

She is also a UNHCR spokeslady. Her name is Roberta Russo, and she is also working in Lebanon. She spoke in English, and it was translated.

Update, December 16, 2013

Here is Dana Sleiman interviewed from the refugee camps a few days later.

More pictures of snow in the Middle East and amongst Syrian refugees here.