IDPS IN NORTHERN SYRIA

by DAAP | School of Architecture and Interior Design - Graduate School

DISPLACEMENT

As more and more people around the world are forced to leave their homes, whether due to similar internal conflicts, the encroaching climate crisis, or other circumstances, the Syrian crisis brings up a pertinent line of questioning. How to address displacement within the broader context of ethics, politics, geography, and economy? Camps and shelters may be solutions we currently offer, but they are temporary and do not provide a sense of basic decency to their users.

23 percent of the total population in Northern Syria are currently living in camps. 69 percent of these camps are run and supported by an organization, and 31 percent are random, self-made camps where refugees rent private agricultural land and pay about one thousand dollars in annual rent to secure a space to set up their tents. There are no water or sanitary infrastructures in these types of camps. People have to walk long distances to relieve themselves in nature or to fetch potable water. Aid is offered only occasionally and residents are left to fend for themselves.

The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as well as the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the global economic crisis that followed it, are recent examples of global disasters that have also affected the camps in Syria. Higher prices for food and energy supplies, as well as donors faced with other crises, have made already terrible conditions in Northern Syria slide into a human catastrophe.

Despite the reality of camps increasingly becoming long-term dwellings for the displaced population, average life spent in camps is 27 years, humanitarian organizations continue to operate within an emergency management and crisis resolution framework. The state of impermanence in which the displaced population lives, stands in contrast to their continuous dependency on the support of humanitarian organizations for their daily survival.