Reporting

Jordan: among the Syrian refugees of Zaatari, twelve years already and a generation of exiles

The Syrian refugee camp in Zaatari, Jordan, in October 2022. AFP - KHALIL MAZRAAWI

Text by: RFI Follow

3 mins

The conflict in Syria is entering its 12th year.

Since 2011, the war has driven more than half of the Syrian population, particularly in neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

The Hashemite Kingdom has welcomed more than a million Syrians.

In Zaatari, the largest Syrian refugee camp in the world is home to 80,000 people, half of whom are children.

Advertisement

Read more

With our special correspondent at the Zaatari camp,

Only about ten kilometers from the border with Syria, in the heart of the Jordanian desert, 80,000 refugees live in Zaatari, a huge city of sheet metal.

Small clothing shops, falafel sellers or supermarkets, its main shopping street has been called "the Champs-Élysées".

Here, the temporary has become permanent for Fathiyé, exiled for ten years.

I would like to return to Syria.

Everyone should be able to live in their own country.

But where could I go back?

My house was destroyed.

And how could I live there?

My son was killed during the war.

And there is no security there.

The majority of the camp's inhabitants are from Deraa, in southern Syria, the cradle of the challenge to Bashar al-Assad's regime in 2011.

Sofian el Hariri, 23, arrived in Zaatari as a teenager.

In the prime of life, he refuses to take the risk of returning to Deraa.

We've been telling ourselves that we're going to come back for ten years and that we're still here.

Me, if I didn't have to do my military service, I would have gone back.

Even if the situation in Syria is no better than here, I would have come back.

But if I go back, they will stop me at the border and force me to join the army.

Report: in Zaatari, the impossible return of refugees to Syria

Sophie Guignon

In the Zaatari camp, half of the Syrian refugees are children (October 2022).

AFP - KHALIL MAZRAAWI

A short life spent in exile

As a teenager, Mahmoud Sleiman does not remember his country.

A refugee in the camp for ten years, he grew up under a tin roof with his parents and five siblings.

If security returns to Syria, our house is still standing.

We kept the house keys.

Like him, 20,000 children in exile are divided into the 32 schools of the camp, where they follow the Jordanian education program.

From the national anthem before going to class to Arabic, English and math lessons.

Abdelaziz Elishraah, the mathematics teacher, wants to be encouraging.

When you have to flee your country, of course it affects you.

But I don't feel there is a level difference between them and the schools outside the camp.

They benefit from the same program.

Some will be quite capable of going to university.

But according to the United Nations, only 3% of young Syrian refugees in Jordan have access to the latter, and many skilled trades are forbidden to them.

These two tens of thousands of children born in Zaatari since the beginning of the war now constitute a new generation of Syrians whose only horizon is exile.

When we arrived, there were no schools.

After a year or two, the situation improved, schools were set up in prefabs.

Report: in the Zaatari camp, a new generation of Syrian exiles

Sophie Guignon

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Continue reading on the same topics

• Jordan

• Syria

• Refugees

• International Migrations

• Humanitarian

• Education

• Children's rights

• Education