After storm, displaced Syrians fix tents in the mud

The first winter storm has belted down on hundreds of displaced Syrians huddled in flimsy tents in a muddy field in the country's last major rebel stronghold of Idlib.

After the skies clear on Friday, Umm Mohammed steps outside her family's tent to better prepare it for the cold months ahead.

She is one of 300 people living in Kafr Dariyan camp in the northwestern Idlib region, after Syria's seven-year war forced them to flee their homes.

Strong gusts of wind send ripples across the sides of her makeshift family home, a mismatching patchwork of blankets sewn together and thrown over a metal frame.

Her tanned face etched with age lines, Umm Mohammed shovels mud into a white rice sack to weigh down the sides of her tent.

Dressed in a long brown robe and dark blue headscarf, she hammers down a massive wooden peg to anchor her billowing home with rope.

Inside, she threads a large needle with coarse string to fix any holes in the tent after the storm overnight.

"The start of winter has come and we're stuck in tents with just blankets over our heads," Umm Mohammed says, two young girls and a boy perched by her side.

"They're all going to fly off, so we're here fixing them so they don't."

Outside, rainwater has pooled in a large brown puddle just several metres beyond where her family sleeps.

Small children in jackets squelch in the mud -- the luckiest in rubber boots, some in plastic sandals or even barefoot.

Sheep wander across the wet earth in between the rows of tents.

Under a clear blue sky, another elderly woman fills up sacks with earth and flings them onto the edges of her tent.

Half of the three million people living in the Idlib region have been displaced from their homes by fighting in other parts of the country.

Since 2011, Syria's war has killed more than 360,00 people and caused more than half the country's population to flee their homes.

For now, Kafr Dariyan and the wider Idlib region have been protected from a regime assault by a buffer zone deal agreed by regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey.

But Damascus has said the deal is temporary, and said the region will eventually revert to state control.

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