Born in a refugee camp...

(Baonghean.vn) - 5 years of continuous civil war in Syria, countless makeshift tents have become shelters for the homeless in Jordan's Zaatari refugee camp. The dense bushes have gradually formed small trails, lacking only street names. And a generation has been born, from fathers and mothers who are always worried that their children will never know their homeland.

A new generation is born in the Zaatari refugee camp. Photo: Reuters.

Hudhayfah Al Hariri, who fled Deraa four years ago, has watched Zaatari rapidly grow into a home to some 85,000 refugees, making it Jordan’s fourth most populous “city”. Children play among makeshift homes, schools are open, doctors care for everyone, and babies are cradled in the arms of the elderly.

Hariri, 26, had planned to get married in his hometown. The couple’s future apartment had been carefully decorated. But as the shelling intensified, he was forced to evacuate his birthplace. Hariri’s was the first of many weddings to be held in the deserted camp, just 15 kilometers from the Syrian border.

Hariri and his wife's wedding at a refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan in September 2012. Photo: Reuters.

The wedding photo shows Hariri and his young wife sitting on plastic chairs, with an orange festive carpet in the background. He looks stiff in front of the camera, while she looks away, deep in thought.

Hariri is now the father of two children. Photo: Reuters.

Now the father of two worries that his children born in the camp - a two-year-old and an eight-month-old - could lose their connection to home and the family they left behind.

“My dream is to go back to Syria, and raise my children there – to live in the land of our ancestors, so that my children can live in the best place,” Hariri said. “Our homeland is not here, it is Syria. When they are a little older, I will tell them, but I still hope they grow up in Syria.”

According to the United Nations, more than 4.2 million people have fled Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011. About 13.5 million people are in need of protection and assistance within Syria, of whom more than 6 million are children.

Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, taken on March 7. Photo: Reuters.

Um Ahmad, 26, was also displaced three years ago after her home in Homs was destroyed by shelling. The young woman is now pregnant with her fourth child, and this is the second time she has given birth in a refugee camp.

The children only spent the first few years of their lives in Syria, and the fading memories of their homeland are what makes Um Ahmad saddest: “When we first came here, they kept asking ‘when are we going back, Mom?’. But now they have forgotten about it, they are busy playing, studying, etc. If we stay here for another two years, we will all forget Syria.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 50-80 babies have been born at Zaatari every week since it was established in 2012.

It is estimated that 50-80 new babies are born here every week. Photo: Reuters.

The camp has two reproductive health care facilities, one is a Moroccan field hospital, with 60 beds, one operating room and a staff of 118.

The remaining clinic is supported by the United Nations, has 24 beds, 39 obstetricians, pediatricians and nurses.

Field hospitals and clinics provide health care for mothers and children in refugee camps. Photo: Reuters.

Baby girl Siwar was born on March 7 in a dimly lit operating room at a field hospital in Morocco, after a cesarean section in a tent sterilized to meet surgical conditions.

A baby girl was born after a cesarean section in a sterilized surgical tent in Zaatari on March 7. Photo: Reuters.

The baby’s mother, Um Rimas, 22, said her biggest sadness was that her parents would not be able to see their grandchild. “It’s so hard here,” she said, speaking weakly after giving birth to her second child in Zaatari. “If I was at home, surrounded by my family, I would feel different, but in the refugee camp I have no family.”

Thu Giang

(According to Reuters)