New Generation of Syrians Were Born in Exile

Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP
Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP
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New Generation of Syrians Were Born in Exile

Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP
Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP

Ten years after fleeing war in her native Syria, Hadeel is expecting a third child, brought into a life of poverty and uncertainty at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.

The camp, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital Amman, is home to some 80,000 Syrian refugees, according to the United Nations.

Half of the camp's residents are children, and many have no memory of Syria.

"I was hoping to be at home, in my country," Hadeel said, asking to use a pseudonym for safety concerns.

"Fate decided I would be here, get married and give birth to my children here."

Like most refugees in the camp, she and her family arrived from Syria's southern Daraa province, the cradle of the 2011 uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The ensuing war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced around half of the country's pre-war population.

Hadeel, who is six months pregnant, married a Syrian refugee who also lives in Zaatari, and the couple have two children, aged six and seven.

At least 168,500 Syrian babies have been born in Jordan since 2014, according to the UN, part of an estimated one million children born to Syrians in exile across the world over the same period.

Many are born in overcrowded refugee camps, with limited access to education and the threat of child labor and forced marriage hanging over them.

Sat on a red plastic chair in a large hall, Hadeel awaited a checkup at the only clinic in the camp that delivers babies.

"My children grew up here. When they hear me talking to other women about Syria, they ask me, 'Mama, where is Syria? Why do we live in this?'" said Hadeel.

"I try to explain to them that this is not our country. We are refugees. It's difficult for them to understand".

Some 675,000 Syrian refugees are registered with the UN in Jordan, but Amman estimates the real figure to be about twice that and says the cost of hosting them has exceeded $12 billion.

While fighting in southern Syria has abated, Hadeel said it still is not safe enough to return.

Her cousin, "fed up" with the camp, returned to Syria earlier this year.

He was killed less than a month later, and his widow and five children still in Zaatari do not know how he died.

"The bad security situation makes us think a thousand times before returning," Hadeel said.

The maternity ward at the UN-run clinic -- the camp's biggest health facility with 60 staff including 21 midwives -- has 10 beds.

The clinic's director Ghada al-Saad said the facility "works 24/7, offering everything for free, including medicines, treatments, tests and vaccinations" up to the age of two.

Midwife Amon Mustafa, 58, who has worked there since the camp opened in 2012, checks on the new mothers.

"We deliver between five and 10 babies every day, with the five today, the total number of births in the camp has reached 15,963," Mustafa said.

"I know most of the women and children in the camp," she added with a smile.

Nagham Shagran, 20, holding her newborn son, has spent nine years in the camp, where she and her cousin married.

"At first we hesitated to have our first child," she said. "Every human... has the right to be born and live in his or her country, but what can we do?"

Mustafa said staff "are trying" to educate women on family planning and the use of contraceptives, but uptake is limited.

"Children are a blessing, but I hope this will be my last pregnancy,"said Eman Rabie, 28, expecting her fourth child. "My husband loves children; he says they are a blessing from God."

Rabie's home in Daraa was destroyed during the war.

"If we are asked to leave the camp and go back to Syria," she said, "I will be the last to leave".



What Is Known About Polio’s Return to the Gaza Strip 

Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
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What Is Known About Polio’s Return to the Gaza Strip 

Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)

Health authorities in the Gaza Strip confirmed the first case of polio in 25 years earlier this month.

The infection and subsequent partial paralysis of the nearly year-old Abdul-Rahman Abu Al-Jidyan has hastened plans for a mass vaccination campaign of children across the Palestinian enclave starting on Sept. 1.

Three-day pauses in fighting in each of Gaza's three zones have been agreed by Israel and Hamas to allow thousands of UN workers to administer vaccines.

ORIGINS

The same strain that later infected the Palestinian baby, from the type 2 vaccine-derived polio virus that has also been detected in wastewater in some developed countries in recent years, was detected in July in six sewage samples taken in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

It is not clear how the strain arrived in Gaza but genetic sequencing showed that it resembles a variant found in Egypt that could have been introduced from September 2023, the WHO said.

The UN health body says that a drop in routine vaccinations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including Gaza, has contributed to its re-emergence.

Polio vaccination coverage, primarily conducted through routine immunization, was estimated at 99% in 2022 and fell to 89% in 2023. Health workers say the closure of many hospitals in Gaza, often because of Israeli strikes or restrictions on fuel, has contributed to lower vaccination rates. Israel blames Hamas, saying they use hospitals for military purposes.

Aid workers say poor sanitation conditions in Gaza where open sewers and trash piles are commonplace after nearly 11 months of war have created favorable conditions for its spread.

MASS VACCINATIONS

Israel's military and the Palestinian armed group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting to allow for the first round of vaccinations.

The campaign is due to start in central Gaza on Sunday with three consecutive daily pauses in fighting, then move to southern Gaza, where there would be another three-day pause, followed by northern Gaza. There is an agreement to extend the pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.

The vaccines, which were released from global emergency stockpiles, have already arrived in Gaza and are due to be issued to 640,000 children under 10 years of age.

They will be given orally by some 2,700 health care workers at medical centers and by mobile teams moving among Gaza's hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war, UN aid workers say.

The World Health Organization says that a successful roll-out requires at least 95% coverage.

The Israeli military's humanitarian unit (COGAT) said that the vaccination campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military "as part of the routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach the medical centers where the vaccinations will be administered".

A second round is planned in late September.

RISKS

The Gaza case which is vaccine-derived is seen as a setback for the global polio fight which has driven down cases by more than 99% since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns.

Wild polio is now only endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan although more than 30 countries are still listed by the WHO as subject to outbreaks, including Gaza's neighbors Egypt and Israel.

The World Health Organization has warned of the further spread of polio within Gaza and across borders given the poor health and hygiene conditions there.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the faecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis and death in young children with those under 2 years old most at risk. In nearly all cases it has no symptoms, making it hard to detect.