Entering the Axis of Evil, Host to Millions of Refugees

Entering the "Axis of Evil"

“Don’t wear anything bright. Put on sunglasses. Try to look as local as possible because the police will interrogate you and not let you into the refugee camps!”

Like Amman, Damascus is an enormous city. It hosts somewhere between 2 and 4 million Iraqi refugees and roughly 1 million Palestinian refugees, but you would never know by looking. One has to seek out the refugee crisis in order to see it.

We took the advice of our friends in Jordan and the US to be paranoid about our appearance, documentation, etc. We emptied our camera chip, hid passport copies in our bras, and alerted our friends in Jordan before we headed off the infamous refugee camp in Damascus city. As it turned out, we didn’t have much hassle entering the camp.

We didn’t have to bribe any officers, or hire a secret taxi. We boarded a crowded bus, paid 10 cents, lied about our destination, and got off at AlSayda Zenab Camp. Perhaps because of our careful appearance and our practice sauntering like local women, we strolled into AlSayda Zenab  with no police questioning.

Entrance to Refugee Camp in Damascus, Syria

Familes Selling Their Belongings

Recycled USAID Food Cans

Boys in Front of their UNRWA School

Entering the “Axis of Evil”

Mural by children in Refugee Camp

It was clear that the fear and drama surrounding refugee camps in Syria had kept most people out, because as we strolled the streets of the Camp, curios people poked their heads out in surprise. A little boy naked from the waste down ran down the street to sound the alert: “Foreigners are here! Foreigners are here!”

AlSayda Zenab Camp was hastily constructed for the major influx of refugees that have fled Palestine and Iraq. Some houses have electricity and water, others do not. Walls are crooked and unsealed. Trash is everywhere. There is a dusty central market in which refugees peddle their old belongings to survive, mostly junk but also some old antiques, which indicated that the ragged the peddler selling them was once a very rich and important man back in Iraq or Palestine…

Families Selling Their Belongings

But above any poverty or suffering, there is evidence of community, life, and emotional health. Recycled cans, from USAID food drops in Iraq, now serve as flowerpots brimming with geraniums. School children terrorize the streets with their noise and energy. A fat old lady laughed and laughed when we stopped to take a picture of the Palestinian and Syrian flags that adorned one street. There is suffering in this camp, there is poverty and anguish. But there is so much life and delight as well.

Recycled USAID Food Cans

We did not enter refugee homes or hear their detailed stories (we will return to Syria in 4 weeks to do this), but it is evident from my short visit to AlSayda Zenab Camp that refugees in Syria are fairing better emotionally than those in Jordan, because they live in a dense  community with other members of their cultural and social community.

Conversely, in Amman refugees do not interact much with one another because they are physically isolated from other refugees, UNCHR has trouble reaching their homes, and informal networks are harder to form. Depression, agoraphobia, and distrust of fellow Iraqis are all high. In all my home visits, I never once saw planted flowers or other such signs of emotional liveliness.  AlSayda Zenab’s  emotional peace was apparent not only in subtleties like flower pots, but also in refugee chidlren’s extensive support network.

AlSayda Zenab Camp has schools within the camp specifically designed for refugee children. We stumbled on a UNRWA middle school, and were immediately swarmed by schoolboys. “What is your name!?” “Where are you from!?” We had come upon “The Exchange,” when the boys run home from morning school and the girls flood in for afternoon school.This school caters directly to the refugee community, and we noticed signs posted: “You have the right to return to your homeland.”

Boys in Front of their UNRWA School

I am not sure how Syria created a refugee camp community within this crowded city, but it seems to be serving the emotional and social needs of refugees well.

There are pitfalls to the camp setting as well: criminal economies, often involving child trafficking and prostitution, a long term failure of refugees to integrate into the host society, and the rise of gang-like power brokers who control internal-external interface on the camp’s borders. We plan to do more investigating on these issues and others when we return.

For now the only thing I can personally attest to is the superior social/emotional health of refugees living in a community of other refugees, rather than in isolation as they do in Amman, Jordan.

Mural by children in Refugee Camp

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