State of the refugees

By the way, in a strange turn of circumstance, two of the largest refugee camps sound the most delicious. Za'atari here in Jordan means "thyme-y" - like the spice. One of the largest refugee camps in Turkey is in the town of Rayhanli, which means "basil-y" - again like the spice.

That makes the situation sound better than it is. Just to give some scale, according to the boss of the place I work, which I'll call the Middle East Refugee Relief Administration (MERRA), there are over 3,000 Syrian refugees crossing into Jordan daily. There are over 320,000 refugees outside of the camps, and about 70-80,000 in Za'atari, the largest camp in the north. This totals about 6.5% of the population of Jordan. That's the equivalent of about 20 million refugees flooding into the US in less than two years. The group I work with focuses on aiding those outside the camps.

These stats are about a week old, but last I heard there were 1,700 injured Syrians in Jordan. 78 have paralysis of some sort, of which five are less than 12 years old. There are 282 injured in various hospitals scattered throughout the country and 650 kids with chronic diseases in need of treatment.

While it sounds like things aren't perfect in Za'atari, including riots earlier this year, things are being run under UNHCR. Outside the camps, there is little organization/coordination between organizations as I understand it. So keeping track of needs and aid and distributing it is quite a challenge. I'll write more about this as I learn more.

Some have asked me if I've gone to the camp in Za'atari. I haven't gone yet, and I won't go until I have some permission to do some work there. A number of people are taking trips just to see UNHCR tents and snap photos. Seems a bit humiliating to be visiting people like its a human zoo. I saw similar "poverty tourists" when I volunteered on Saturdays in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut (as an aside, the massacre there was the subject of a great 2008 film, Waltz with Bashir). I understand the need to raise awareness about an issue, but it needs to be balanced with respect for the way people live.