We Have it Bad       
Others Have it BAD!   
    
   Coronavirus has hit hard in Iran and other Middle Eastern states. While they battle the virus, aid workers also protect victims of war and displacement. 

   More than 12 million refugees and other displaced people live in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. These countries share borders and other ties to Iran, which itself hosts a million refugees.  

  New fighting between Turkey and Syria has forced another million or so from their homes, over half of them children. 
  

Report from Mindy Belz

WORLD magazine  

  

   People living in tents faced subzero temperatures this winter. Small aid groups deliver food to families without cook stoves or heat. Children wear flip-flops. 

   Then came COVID-19. Protections are next to impossible in substandard conditions, while humans are weakened to begin with.

   As if warfare, border closings and government upheaval aren't bad enough, street protests have limited banking in Lebanon and Iraq, two main areas for staging relief work in Syria. Aid workers backpack cash into the region to purchase supplies.

   Lebanon, in serious debt, could default and lose its banking system.

   A team in Syria is using a container-built mobile hospital where surgeons and other medical personnel treat trauma and diseases. Medics are available because their Syrian hospitals have been destroyed. 

   Heart for Lebanon, working among Syrian refugees, handles health, security and safety measures. Workers say they have "an unprecedented opportunity to show the love of Jesus Christ." 

     Jimmy