Syria: Displaced People Struggle For Survival
As the year draws to an end, millions of families around the world are gathering in the warmth and safety of their homes to celebrate the holiday season. But in northeastern Syria thousands of displaced people are huddled in makeshift shelters in the cold, and the wet, and the mud.
They have survived brutal bombardment, the loss of loved ones, and desperate hunger. Now freezing winter floods are the challenge for almost ten thousand people stuck in Areesha camp in northeastern Syria.
“The flooding has affected many people in the camp,” explains Abu Abed, who has been displaced from his home in Deir Ezzor. “The children have been hit especially hard, they really suffer in this cold weather.”
Normal life is simply not possible in these conditions; instead the residents of Areesha are engaged in a grim struggle for survival.
“We got some food and blankets from the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent,” says Um Ahmed, who is also originally from Deir Ezzor. “But we are really afraid of the floods and the winter.”
Day after day, tents have to be fastened down into the mud, day after day, meals have to be prepared in the wind and the cold. Om Mohammed is struggling to look after her family in the harshest of conditions.
“Look,” she says, as she walks into her tent. “This is where we cook and shower. It’s too small for us. This is where I have to do the laundry, and try to dry the clothes.”
But even as the flood waters ooze across the camp, residents have little access to safe drinking water. The ICRC has been bringing clean water in, in trucks.
“We’ve come to Areesha camp as part of our water trucking project that we run with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent,” explains ICRC Water and Habitat Engineer Mohammed Hindawi. “As you can see, one of our trucks is filling the tanks to provide clean water to the 10,000 people living here.”
Clean water is essential to life, but in Areesha camp other aspects of life we tend to take for granted are completely absent. There is nowhere to play, nowhere to eat, nowhere to sleep in comfort.
“We just wish we could go home,” says Om Mohammed. “No one wants to stay here in this camp, but we don’t have any choice.”
The ICRC is supporting displaced people in Areesha with emergency relief items, and stands ready to scale up its response. But aid supplies can only be a short term solution. In the long term, displaced right across Syria need to be able to return home, and to start their lives again, in peace and safety.
KEY FACTS
In 2018 17.3 million Syrians benefitted from ICRC supported water and habitat projects.
1 million people in Aleppo, Rural Damscus, Homs, Hama, Al-Hassekeh and Deir Ezzor received water delivered by trucks.
106 water facilities across Syria were rehabilitated and upgraded.
280,000 displaced people benefitted from renovations and upgrading of housing, water sanitation facilities in 65 collective shelters.
For further information please contact:
Adnan Hezam, Syria, Mobile: (+963) 930 336 718, E-mail: ahizam@icrc.org
Follow the ICRC on facebook.com/icrc and twitter.com/icrc
SHOTLIST
0:00 – 0:06 WS Flooded camp
0:06 – 0:16 Children running through muddy camp
0:16 – 0:21 Tent with food piled up
0:21 – Sound bite Abu Abed (Original Arabic) “The flooding has affected many people in the camp. The children have been hit especially hard, they really suffer in this cold weather.”
0:29 – 0:34 Flooded camp
0:34 – 0:47 Sound bite Um Ahmed (Original Arabic) “We got some food and blankets from the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. But we are really afraid of the floods and the winter.”
0:47 – 0:52 Repairing tent
0:52 – 0:58 cooking inside tent
0:58 – 1:18 Sound bite Om Mohammed (Original Arabic) showing tent “Look, this is where we cook and shower. It’s too small for us. This is where I have to do the laundry, and try to dry the clothes.”
1:18 – 1:23 Old person and child struggle through mud
1:23 – 1:31 Child fetching water
1:31 – 1:38 Water truck
1:38 – 1:52 Sound bite ICRC Water and Habitat Engineer Mohammed Hindawi (Original Arabic) “We’ve come to Areesha camp as part of our water trucking project that we run with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. As you can see, one of our trucks is filling the tanks to provide clean water to the 10,000 people living here.”
1:52 – 1:58 Children running through camp
1:58 – 2:15 Sound bite Om Mohammed (Original Arabic) “We just wish we could go home. No one wants to stay here in this camp, but we don’t have any choice.”
2:15 – 2:20 Children getting water
2:20 – 2:25 Children with ICRC delegate
2:25 – 2:32 Clothes drying on fence, flood waters
Shooting Date: 17.12.2018
Location: Areesha Camp, Hassakeh Governorate, Northeastern Syria
Language: Arabic
Cameraman: Ali Zoussef
Copyright: Access All
Reference: December_2018_Syria_floods
