Tanya Burr
Nothing could have prepared me for how big it was and seeing so many shelters lined up (Picture: UNHCR)

I thought I knew quite a lot about the Syrian refugee crisis before I visited the Azraq camp in Jordan with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

A few months before I went, I’d been moved to tears by a play called The Jungle, about the refugee crisis in Calais. On another occasion, a Syrian refugee came to my house and told me his story over dinner.

It was difficult to envisage what it would be like but any expectations I had fell away once I arrived at Azraq. Nothing could have prepared me for how big it was and seeing so many shelters lined up. That’s when the reality kicked in.

Azraq is home to over 35,000 Syrian refugees and over 60 per cent of them are children. It was like a village but without any of the normal things that come with that.

I went into three homes, which were all little stand-alone shelters with one room in which a family has to live in, sleep in, do everything in.

They have no facilities for washing; they have a bucket and outside there is a shared water tap where they get cold water.

I spent a day hearing stories first-hand. All of them were heartbreaking, but one of the most affecting was Nisreen’s.

She told me about her husband who passed away in Syria in 2013. He was coming back home when he was caught in crossfire and was hit by shrapnel close to his heart.

Tanya Burr with Syrian refugees
It became too dangerous for Nisreen and her children to stay so they decided to leave for safety in Jordan (Picture: UNHCR)

They lived near Yarmouk – a camp for Palestinian refugees in Damascus – where there was no medication, healthcare or help, and after a month he passed away from his wound.

At the same time, young men were being randomly detained in Syria and she had brothers who were being taken. It became too dangerous for Nisreen and her children to stay, so they decided to leave for safety in Jordan.

She made the journey to Jordan alongside her four children with no support, food or water, carrying her three-year-old on her back, trying to keep him quiet in the pitch black night, as they crossed the border so as not to attract attention and gunfire.

They spent 70 days in the no-man’s land between Syria and Jordan before being transported to Azraq with help from the Jordanian army.

It is so hard to know what to say to someone who has lost family members. It must be easy to feel like giving up in that situation, or that the journey isn’t possible. She must have been so, so terrified but had to keep it together for her children.

Nisreen and her family have now been at the camp for seven years, and she said that while conditions had got better, this time of year is hardest. The temperatures are now reaching below zero and the refugees are incredibly vulnerable, especially the children.

The kids seemed so resilient, though – not crying, just getting on with life. It was lovely to see them smiling but it’s very concerning knowing the temperatures are just going to keep dropping and they become more vulnerable.

Tanya Burr with a Syrian refugee
You can hear about a situation on the news but it’s not until I was there, listening to people’s lives, that I felt that connection (Picture: UNHCR)

Families have one gas heater and a few blankets between them, provided by UNHCR, but the shelters don’t have any kind of heating at all.

On my visit I also met a little girl called Shahed. She was so sweet but really shy and wanted to come and sit next to me and have a cuddle. She had a little notepad and drew a picture of me. I fell in love with her a bit.

Her mum said Shahed thinks that she comes from Syria, that she lives there, but she was born in the camp. She doesn’t know any different and for her, the camp is life.

Other women I talked to described the beautiful homes they lived in before the war destroyed them. They spoke about their close knit families and the love they’d had for their jobs – one had been an art teacher, another made crochet work for customers in the Gulf, Kuwait and Bahrain, and the other two had been dressmakers.

It highlighted just how misunderstood refugees are – I’ve heard people in the UK wonder why they come here and why they don’t ‘go back to where they come from’. Hearing their stories, I realised that many of them want to live in their own country; they miss their homes in a place that was safe for them before the war.

I asked one woman if she felt daunted by the idea of winter in camp. She replied that she used to love winter. Back in Syria, when they lived in their houses before the war, she and her family would get cosy with a hot water bottle, turn on the heating and cope in the exact same way that we do.

Syria is in its ninth year of conflict and 3million people have been displaced, some multiple times. They have lost everything and are now are at risk of death if they can’t keep warm, or get to the relative safety of a camp like Azraq.

Since coming home, I think about my experience at Azraq every single day. I talk about it all the time. I see my job now as raising awareness, trying to change the stigma around refugees and encouraging people to donate if that’s possible for them.

I’m aware that I have a large social media following that I can use to shine a light on an issue that needs funding, but also create far more understanding.

You can hear about a situation on the news but it wasn’t until I was there, listening to people’s lives, that I felt that connection. I will never forget the faces of the people I met – and their children.

They have lost so much – everything really – but Nisreen told me that she is just grateful. She said: ‘All the hardship doesn’t matter. I’m just very thankful to be here. My children are safe so we’re okay.’

Visit the UNHCR website to support their coronavirus appeal and the #BelowZero winter campaign.

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