Prior to COVID, the situation was dire and life-threatening in these camps. There is lack of access to clean water, food, there's no education for the children, the health care system is very severely damaged, open latrines, unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and tents that overheat in summer, and collapse with the weight of snow and rain in the winter. These are abysmal conditions that Canadians and others find themselves in al-Hol and Roj camps, and this was prior to COVID.
Now with COVID we're talking about a situation where you have a health care system in Syria that has been eroded over the past 10 years of conflict with no capacity to provide any kind of treatment for COVID, any type of medication. There's obviously the question and the issues around the aid corridor. Of course, we're talking about 8,000 official cases of COVID in the camps; certainly the number is far greater, but there's no real testing capacity or capability to ascertain the number.