Four years on, Syria’s refugees search for a future

posted on: Mar 18, 2015

The Syrian uprising began four years ago. On Sunday, thanks to the Korber Foundation, I was able to make a brief visit to Zaatari Refugee Camp outside Amman, Jordan. Established two years ago, Zaatari is now no longer a short-term shelter for those fleeing the butchery of the Assad regime—it has become a long-term residence for over 85,000 Syrians—a small town with two supermarkets, thousands of tiny resident-run shops, with water and sewage pipes being laid. The planning for Zaatari’s shift to semi-permanence reflects the longevity of this horrible war and the sad reality that, with half of Syria’s population displaced, even an immediate end to conflict would not bring the immediate return of refugees to their homes.

The government of Jordan and UNHCR (the U.N. refugee agency), which jointly manage the camp, have begun to shift from emergency assistance to building the economic and social infrastructure for long-term residency. Helping refugees find jobs and start businesses within the camp is cheaper, the U.N. notes, than providing humanitarian assistance—and with the conflict raging on, it’s increasingly crucial for younger men in the camp to find some means of making ends meet, lest they be tempted to return to Syria by militias offering cash to fighters. Moreover, long-term residency demands attention to dignity—a word the U.N. staff use frequently. Thus, providing food aid through debit cards residents can use to buy goods at a supermarket is better than handing out sacks of rice—enabling greater independence and more choice for camp residents and returning a sense of normality to lives upended by violence.

Source: www.brookings.edu