Fears of a pandemic ... displaced in the north of Syria: We have never heard of Corona

Omar Youssef - Aleppo countryside

On the outskirts of the city of Azaz in Aleppo countryside, north of Syria, and amid the muddy agricultural lands, the random "Shaker camp" for the Syrian IDPs from the countryside of Aleppo, Hama and Idlib, whose homes were destroyed by the bombing and the progress of the Syrian regime, appears.

As a result of the overcrowding of the camps in the Syrian north, the people deliberately set up their tents in the open in a land that lacks basic services of sanitation, drinking water and electricity, at a time when the camp turns into a large pool of mud and its residents and their tents are flooded with every slight rain rainfall.

Camp residents share access to water from plastic tanks in the middle of the camp, and residents often line up in a long line to get it for drinking and cooking food.

The residents have never heard of the new Corona virus (Covid-19), and few of them have a smartphone with Internet access, and even if they do, it is best used to communicate with relatives and displaced neighbors in other camps.

Diffusion factors
Despite indicative campaigns by the Health Directorate and civil defense teams about the Corona epidemic and ways to address it, no one has arrived at the camp to inform residents of it.

"The camp lacks a medical point for treating or examining patients in case one of them shows symptoms of the epidemic, not to mention the lack of health awareness among all and their lack of knowledge of the disease and ways of prevention," said Hassan al-Sattouf, 40, a resident of Shaker camp.

In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Sattouf indicates that the factors of spreading the virus in the camp are available from the lack of water for washing hands and hygiene, the absence of sterilization materials, sanitation, and drinking water and washing facilities.

Sattouf warned of the spread of the epidemic among the camp residents, due to the constant mixing between its residents on water lines and the receipt of food rations, as well as human gatherings of more than one family within the single tent.

Every morning, camp children gather to play and have fun in the yard, there are no manifestations of isolation or voluntary quarantine for the residents, often jumping in mud puddles and mud formed from rain. At the end of time, the children go to drink water collectively from the tap.

Um Hussein, 65, who is displaced from the Hama countryside, says her three grandchildren spend their time playing outside the tent from morning until sunset, like the rest of the camp's children.

Umm Hussein adds to Al-Jazeera Net that she had not heard of Corona's disease and its spread between the countries of the world and Syria, except when we told her about its dangers and ways of spreading, asking the relief organizations to increase food support to face the disease.

According to Umm Hussein, families inside the camp hardly get soap from a support organization, to use it for washing hands and clothes, without any toiletries available.

Governmental efforts
Until this moment, no cases of Corona epidemic were recorded in the areas controlled by the Syrian opposition, according to statements of the Minister of Health in the Syrian Interim Government, Maram Al-Sheikh, who confirmed that the north of Syria is free of the disease.

The sheikh explained to Al-Jazeera Net that there were no civilian casualties recorded in the opposition areas, "because the area is almost completely closed, in addition to the modest measures by us in the community awareness and preventive."

On the efforts made by the opposition government, the minister pointed to the formation of community awareness teams in cooperation with local councils and civil defense to clarify the nature of the epidemic, in addition to sterilizing public institutions, and urging a policy of social divergence by limiting permanence and suspension in the Free University of Aleppo and in schools.

And on the international warnings about the spread of the epidemic inside the camps in northern Syria, the minister talked about meetings with the camp managers, to emphasize the need to increase water and food allocations, and to urge to take preventive measures in terms of hygiene and reduce gatherings as possible, and follow the preventive instructions.