1 August 2013
Children of Syria
A UNICEF update
Za’atari tent number one, a year on By Toby Fricker ZA’ATARI, Jordan – When Omar* arrived with his wife and 8 children at Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp they thought it would be for a few months. They are still there 12 months later. “I never imagined we would still be here. Right behind my house was the border of the camp, past that was the desert,” said Omar. “Now I can walk for an hour to get to the end of the camp,” he added. Za’atari is home to some 120,000 Syrians and covers an area of approximately 9 square kilometers.
“It provides better protection,” says Omar. He remembers arriving 12 months ago to tents being blown 30 metres into the air by severe gusts of wind. Jordan’s northern desert is seriously exposed to the elements. Omar has since created a mini compound with his old tent and caravan. In the middle, he proudly shows off the cemented ‘yard’. But his biggest concerns are his children. “They feel very bored and have almost nothing,” he said. Two of his children attend one of the UNICEF-supported schools in the camp. While it helps to provide some sense of normalcy to their lives, Omar says that the camp’s tough living conditions make it hard for them to concentrate. www.unicef.org/mena
©UNICEF/Jordan-2013/Masciarelli
Omar’s tent is now a caravan. Throughout the year many of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) supplied tents have been replaced by caravans.
Children make up half of Za’atari’s population, now estimated at over 120,000
“In Syria they used to have a good life. They were not as tired as here, so they were prepared to take in information,” he said. The hot summer weather makes learning conditions even tougher. Omar also remembers the bitter winter months with a sense of fear. “It was so rough. They distributed these gas heaters but it was so cold, the gas they gave us was not enough,” he said. Another serious concern is the lack of work. Living in tent number one brings with it some benefits. He
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is located just off the main market road from where the camp grew. It’s nicknamed the ‘Champs Elysees’. “It’s a good place to make a shop. I don’t work in it. I give it to someone to work in and pay him a salary,” said Omar. He sells some basic food products. With the 50 to 60 Jordanian dinars (US$70 to 85) he makes a month, he buys vegetables. One year on and Omar still dreams of his one hope. “Don’t look at life here as permanent, we don’t want it here. The only thing I need is help to go back to Syria,” he said. *Name has been changed
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Children of Syria
1 August 2013
THE WEEK IN PHOTOS
© UNICEF/Iraq-2013/Abdulmunem
They sure can recognize a celebrity when they see one: Syrians living in Domiz refugee camp in Iraq, young and less young alike, were thrilled by a recent visit by Egyptian actor and UNICEF Ambassador Mahmoud Kabil. Kabil spoke to mothers, fathers and children about their life in the camp, their needs and the services UNICEF offers.
©UNICEF/Jordan-2013/Azzeh
Bored no more: A new sports ground, built with a generous donation from the Kuwaiti government to UNICEF and Mercy Corps, was officially inaugurated this week. It will provide children between the ages of 10 and 14 with the opportunity to play football, volleyball and basketball, in the presence of two trained coaches.
By Alma Hassoun
DAMASCUS, Syria – UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Yoka Brandt and Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Maria Calivis visited Syria recently, meeting with children and families displaced by the ongoing conflict. At a shelter in Damascus, a father of three boys, aged between 2 months to 10 years told Brandt that he had moved house five times before ending up at the shelter. His accommodation consists of a classroom shared with another two families – privacy comes from tarpaulin sheets for walls. This shelter, originally a children’s school, was opened around six months ago. It is the temporary www.unicef.org/mena
home to approximately 70 families, including 150 children. Most of the families fled Rural Aleppo, Rural Damascus as well as neighborhoods in southern Damascus. While at the shelter, Brandt and Calivis also attended UNICEFsupported psychosocial support activities aimed at helping children to cope with the effects of conflict and displacement. Groups of young children sat on the floor in circles making coloured paper into the shape of birds with the support of volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Older children played a game in which they acted out a range of feelings such as anger, worry and stress.
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Playing is crucial to children’s healing.
In addition to providing psycho–social help to children at shelters in Damascus, UNICEF is also supporting mobile health teams in 12 governorates as well as providing safe drinking water, through the provision of chlorine, to over 10 million people across Syria. UNICEF continues to deliver ongoing support to women and children with humanitarian services and supplies across Syria.
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©UNICEF/Syria-2013/Hassoun
UNICEF supports children to forget horrors in time of conflict
Children of Syria
1 August 2013
By Juliette Touma DAMASCUS, Syria – I first went to Syria in the summer of 2012 with the United Nations Supervision Mission (UNSMIS). Even as fighting between Government forces and the armed opposition spread, I travelled around the country. I visited villages that had been totally stripped of human life, and walked into burned-down homes. In one house stood a piano and bookcases neatly organized with children’s books; there was a computer in one corner, and a beautiful chandelier hung from the ceiling – miraculously it had survived the fire. I also met ordinary people who told me stories of deep misery, fear, displacement, death, killing, torture, kidnapping and forced disappearances. I left the country in August last year, but it never left me. The thought of returning has haunted me ever since. Going back Last week, I went again, this time with UNICEF – and I saw how much things have deteriorated since my previous trip. The destruction is indescribable. In a Damascus school, converted into a shelter for internally displaced persons, I met 8-year-old Shadi, one of 4.25 million people who have been forced to leave their homes to flee the violence of war. Many of them have sought shelter in schools. Shadi is Palestinian. His grandparents left the small town of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee in 1948, seeking refuge in what was then www.unicef.org/mena
called the Syrian Republic. Today, there are about half a million Palestinian refugees in Syria. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), more than half of them have been doubly displaced as a result of the Syrian conflict.
© UNICEF/Syria-2013/Touma
Revisiting Syria, a year later
At a school-turned-shelter in Damascus, 5-year-old Rida, tired and sleepless, says, “I miss my little bedroom in Dera’a. I can’t use it now, because it has been bombed.”
Shadi, holding my hand tightly, walked me to a small room and introduced me to Shirine, a volunteer with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC). With UNICEF support, SARC is providing art therapy to children whose world has been turned upside down because of this conflict. “There are children here who keep speaking about death; children who witnessed the arrest, injury and even death of close family members,” says Shirine. “The work we do here through drawing, drama, music and sports makes them smile again, even if for a bit.”
Outside in the schoolyard, some children were playing handball. Rida, 5, stood alone, not joining the group. “I’m so sleepy. It’s too noisy here, and I am always tired,” he says. “I miss my little bedroom in Dera’a. I can’t use it now, because it has been bombed.” Struggling to provide the basics This shelter hosts one of more than 450 school clubs that UNICEF supports to help children catch up on their education and engage in activities with their peers. The hundreds of thousands of families displaced by the Syrian conflict need urgent humanitarian
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assistance, and aid agencies are struggling to keep up. UNICEF is helping provide safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, schools, vaccines and safe spaces where children can recover from the horror of fighting. These are basic essentials for children and their families to survive and live in dignity, until maybe one day they can rebuild their homes – and their lives.
Refugees by numbers* Lebanon
663,000
Jordan
511,000
Turkey 431,000 Iraq
160,000
Egypt
101,000
North Africa 14,000 Total
1,880,000
(UNICEF estimates that 50% of these refugees are children.) - Figures have been rounded *UNHCR registered refugees and individuals awaiting registration as of 1 August 2013
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1 August 2013
Imagine having to tell your kids Christmas is cancelled DOMIZ, Iraq – Hesham is 12 and has missed Eid al-Fitr for the past three years. Eid al-Fitr is the major Islamic celebration that comes after Ramadan, and is basically the equivalent of Christmas for Christians. Ramadan began on 10 July this year. The holy month of fasting is usually accompanied by evenings spent with family and friends, breaking the fast together with traditional foods. It culminates in Eid al-Fitr, a twoday holiday with family, feasting and presents for children. For two years, the conflict in Syria, which fractured Hesham’s family, put a stop to celebrations, and this year in Domiz refugee camp in northern Iraq there isn’t the money or the spirit to mark the occasion. “It’s not a special day anymore. It just happens and no-one notices,” his mother, Naslya, says. “There is no life in this tent.” “Three years ago in Syria, Eid was great. Our relatives would visit us and there would be dancing. We would take the children to the playground every night during Ramadan,” she says. “Three years ago there was no war.”
Briefs Jordan We have reached nearly 16,000 persons with messages about the need to protect children from violence, early marriage and child labour and the importance of sending them to school.
Hesham tells me he used to look forward to the celebrations, which to him meant presents, money, ice cream and playing with his friends. This year he wanted new clothes and new shoes for Eid, he says. But when he asks his mother when they will go shopping, she tells him they can’t afford anything. In another tent, Marim and her nine children, aged from four to 22 years, are spending Ramadan and Eid away from close family. Her husband is still in Damascus – he stayed to sell their house and said he would follow soon, but so far he hasn’t been able to do either. “It’s hard for the children not to see their father for Eid,” Marim says. “My youngest son cries and asks me where his dad is.” Aside from missing family, Marim’s kids know there’s no point asking for presents or treats this year.
Hisham, 12, in his tent in Domiz.
occasions their family celebrated. It’s a magical part of being young, whether it’s about candy and presents, or favourite grandparents and aunts. But Syria’s children are missing this – many for the third year running. The memories they will look back on will be very different to the memories their parents wanted to give them.
Most people cherish their childhood memories of festivals like Eid, Christmas, or whatever festivals and
This is partly why the activities UNICEF and partners run for children at Domiz camp, both in the Child Friendly Space and the recently launched summer activities in schools, are vital to giving these children some positive memories to look back on. For refugee children, these activities – sports, theatre, music, drawing and playing with their friends – may become the bright spots in their memories of camp life.
Lebanon
Syria
Summer education programmes are under way in schools, community centres and informal tented settlements. Their aim? Provide education and psychosocial support to nearly 30,000 children.
Since the beginning of the year, UNICEF and local partners have reached 153,000 children in 14 governorates with medical check-ups.
Iraq
A new child-friendly space opened in Adana camp, southern Turkey, offering a space for young boys and girls to play, interact and enjoy group activities.
“My children used to get so excited looking forward to Eid,” Marim says. “And they know it’s Ramadan now, but they don’t talk about Eid anymore.”
In Domiz, working with partners, we offer English, music and art classes for children, as well as hair dressing and knitting activities for older youth.
For more information:
Juliette Touma UNICEF Middle East and North Africa
© UNICEF/Iraq-2013/Bruere
By Wendy Bruere
jtouma@unicef.org menaro@unicef.org
Turkey
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