Eight years ago, a city grew up in the middle of nowhere. When the Syrian crisis put whole families on the road to exile, fleeing to neighboring countries. The situation, which everyone believed was temporary, has become permanent. In north-eastern Jordan, Zaatari now hosts nearly 80,000 Syrians – half of them children – in the largest refugee camp in the Middle East, administered by the United Nations (UN) and the authorities Jordanian.
There are thirty-two schools here, two hospitals and, in shades of gray and white, 24,000 shelters or prefabricated, sheet metal rusted by humidity and swarmed on land that winter has made muddy. The steps sink into it, dirtying the pants.
A main alley – the only paved one – a kilometer long, shelters shacks where you buy your phone like your meat, diapers like wedding dresses. This shopping street was nicknamed "The Champs-Elysées". It has since become “Sham Elysée”, in reference to the name given to Syria in Arabic, reconstituted in miniature here under the patronage of the major international donors, as the presence of their pennants in various places in the camp reminds. Syria is barely twenty kilometers away, but the return is not possible for the majority of the refugees from Zaatari.
"It’s an open camp", insists a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). A permit is required to venture outside, and gendarmerie armored vehicles are deployed at the edge. In eight years, Abu Mohamad has only gone out two or three times. "I have nothing to do outside", said the 51-year-old father, baking bread patties in the bakery he opened in 2014 inside the camp, where his life is spent in a vacuum.
Dark prospects
Most of the inhabitants' needs can be met there. There is even a supermarket where refugees pay by scanning the iris with their eyes. UNHCR can then identify them in its biometric database and directly extract humanitarian aid from them.
There are 1.4 million Syrians living in this country of less than 10 million people. Of all the countries bordering Syria, Jordan and Lebanon have received the largest number proportionately. Le Pays du Cèdre claims to have 1.5 million for 5.9 million inhabitants. None of these states has asylum law. In a context of regional economic slowdown, since the onset of the Syrian crisis in 2011, the situation of refugees has continued to deteriorate. The effects of the new Covid-19 crisis open up even more bleak prospects.
