Syria Crisis (Page 6)

As a result of the Syrian conflict, there are currently 82,000 Syrians refugees living in Erbil, Iraq, according to Iraqi Red Crescent figures. Refugees are scattered all around the city but it’s not hard to find them. They are living in garages, unfinished buildings, and informal settlements and shelters. A few lucky families have found a room to rent.

The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.

Much like in Canada, the weather over the past few weeks in Syria has included snow, freezing temperatures and at times heavy rain. Despite the cold weather, Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers continue to provide much needed assistance, including distributing blankets, tarps and other relief items to help families stay warm and providing emergency medical care.

Looking around Azraq refugee camp, in Jordan’s north-eastern desert, life seems peaceful, if rudimentary. Children run and play in the camp’s streets, parents shop at the central supermarket, and social and religious activities are growing as refugee families re-establish connections with neighbours. Some Syrian residents can be seen with crutches or other medical equipment, recovering from lingering wounds or long-untreated chronic illnesses.

Yasmin sits in the paediatric ward of the Red Cross Red Crescent hospital in Azraq refugee camp, holding her two-month-old twin boys as they cough and wheeze. She appears calm and composed as she rubs the back of first Nadim and then Mohammed Nur. Both boys have developed an infection in the airways that lead to their lungs. The twins were born in Jordan days after Yasmin, 28, crossed the border as a refugee with her husband and two children.

Nawaf was three years into a challenging five-year bachelor’s degree in computer and information engineering in Damascus when the ongoing Syrian conflict forced him to put his dreams on pause. His family had already fled the country some 18 months before, but Nawaf, 24, and the oldest of seven siblings, stayed behind.

Nine-year-old Amnah arrived at the Azraq Syrian refugee camp in eastern Jordan scared and in pain. She had already spent three months being bumped from house to house, community to community, before being shuttled across Syria’s southern border with Jordan in the hopes of reaching safety – and medical care. Now one of nearly 12,000 Syrian refugees living in the Azraq camp, she has yet to see her new home, meet her neighbours or visit her future school. Instead, she has spent her first 10 days at Azraq in the Red Cross Red Crescent hospital, where the medical team is helping her to heal from a three-month-old gunshot wound.

The Round-up offers a weekly sample of what our sister Red Cross Societies are working on around the world.