Syrian Refugee Camps Becoming Established Cities

Home away from home: The tragic story of the Jordan/Syria border crisis.

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The civil war in Syria has created the world's worst refugee crisis in twenty years. 2.8 million people have fled their homeland to live in foreign camps, such as the UNHCR camp in northern Jordan.

"I always heard the word refugee but I never imagined I would be one", says Samar Hariri, a grieving school teacher and mother of five. Samar, her husband and their children are just a handful of the 100,000 displaced Syrians who flocked to Camp Zaatari - just a few kilometres from the border with Syria - and who now call it home. Two years ago, collections of tents sat incongruously in the middle of this barren desert. Now a refugee city with a distinctive heart and soul of its own, a community of resilient, hopeful people looks set to grow ever more established. "You ask yourself, why is this happening to me? A person who always had dignity now has none". Once a prosperous, middle class family man, Abu Diaa now focuses on transforming their camp into something resembling home: an essential coping mechanism for enduring life in a refugee camp. It is an impulse Kilian Kleinschmidt, head of Zaatari Camp, understands: "When you lose everything... your home, your belongings, you have lost your identity. Everything has gone." In this deeply moving report we witness the stoicism of a family rebuilding themselves among thousands of others.

ABC Australia - Ref 6158

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