Report: One refugee in two is under 18. How will the young Syrians recover?
Radir, 15 years old, doesn’t beat about the bush: “People think I’m nervous and stand-offish. But I’m not! I hurt inside, that’s all. There are lots of things I can’t express, and I really don’t want to talk about some of them. But I feel OK here. The activities we do comfort me,” and she comes out with a big smile. Like every week, last Wednesday the young Syrian girl joined a group of teenagers set up by the NGO Terre des hommes in Al-Mafraq, in northern Jordan. So they can try to readapt themselves to ‘normal’ life.
Andrés Allemand: Text
Olivier Vogelsang: Photos
Source: 24 Heures, Tribune de Genève
The challenge is huge. Half the 420,000 Syrians in Jordan are children, according to the UNO. “They have gone through terrible events: bombing, destruction of their homes, people killed under their very eyes, torture and violation,” says Juergen Wellner from Terre des hommes. “Each of them reacts in his own way. Some of them close themselves off, others become aggressive. They are affected to a very varied degree. Confronted by the same occurrence, one child is not deeply scarred, whilst another requires psychological care. Most of them, however, although affected, have the ability to find their feet again when they find a little stability.”
Thanks to the donations given to Swiss Solidarity by the Swiss public, the NGO can develop weekly structured activities for the youngsters, of whom many do not have immediate access to Jordanian schools. Here, they can make friends. “This is essential, as after the war many parents tend to over-protect their families. The youngsters have to stay in the house, amongst themselves, in an often depressing atmosphere,” says Juergen Wellner. Coming to the centre to take part in the activities is getting out, moving, having fun, interacting with other kids, learning through games to trust and to work together, and also to express what’s in their hearts without always knowing how to say it. This can be done by drawing pictures or acting in playlets where they can pick a role to play. Loss, suffering, anger, or frustration can be expressed in this way.”
Parents who are nervous wrecks
A breath of fresh air? Far more, declares this mother we can call Hana, not to give away her identity. Her husband stayed at Deraa, in Syria, where he is searching for their eldest son, arrested by the forces of Bachar el-Assad. When Hana arrived here three months ago with her six other children, they lived in two damp rooms, without drinking water or electricity . . . and where her sister and five children descended upon them. “Four of my little ones go to the activities. They adore them. Once, having missed the bus that should have taken them, they begged me to go with them on foot to the Terre des hommes centre. I am also in a group of mothers with similar experiences. There I can let my emotions out, rather than letting them out on the children. I’m hard pushed to cope with the situation; sometimes I haven’t a penny to feed my children!”
Azzam and his wife, Khetam, also go with their family to the centre. “Just to get away from the war atmosphere – my children have nightmares . . . and so do I,” confides the father. With their two children they live on the first floor of a building under construction. The owner lets them live there for free, as the windows and doors have not yet been put in. So as to get out of the cold wind and to insulate the bare floor a bit, here and there they have put down blankets and rugs with the UNHCR logo, the UN High Commission for Refugees. But even this precarious shelter is a comfort after the dangerous journey that brought them from Homs, “the capital of the rebellion”, to the Jordanian frontier. Although Lebanon was quite close, they did not dare to set foot there, as, like many Syrians, they fear the Shite militia of the Hezbollah. Encountered in Al-Mafraq, other refugees from Homs assured us that they had actually seen the Lebanese support the soldiers of the Syrian regime. They also told about having heard people speaking Iranian . . .
A barbaric conflict
A few kilometres away from Al-Mafraq, in the refugees’ mega-camp of Zaatari, where 120,000 of the 420,000 Syrians are massed, 6-year-old Mohamed is waiting in his wheel-chair for his consultation in the courtyard of the small physiotherapy centre run by an NGO. His leg bones were shattered when a bomb exploded in Deraa. But now, after fifteen operations and several weeks of physiotherapy, he’s ready to jump around again. His mother sighs. “I thought they were going to amputate his leg in Syria. My family got the full impact of the war, and several of my sons are part of the rebellion. One of them was slaughtered in my house by soldiers who afterwards forced me to get them a meal. They are barbarians.”
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