Fleeing Death and Destruction

"Those who lost relatives will seek revenge. The Bedouins, for example, will know who was killed from their families and who did it. As the conflict has gone on, resentments have grown."
"I came home from work and there were lots of bodies in the street and no time to bury them. You had to run or you'd get killed yourself."
"I am speechless when I think of what Bashar has done in our country. Because so many intend to settle scores we will have another war when he is gone."
Eysan and Zeyad, mother/daughter refugees, Al Za'atri Camp, Jordan

About 1,500 additional refugees arrive at the UN Al Za'atri Camp in Jordan each day. Adding to the already existing 94,000 whose presence is straining the capacity of the United Nations to help feed them all, and whose dire needs and numbers are having a profound weight of cost, aid and capacity on Jordan.

Ten kilometres from Syria's southern border, as more destruction and slaughter commence the desperate Syrian refugees will keep coming.

Others, of course seek refuge in Turkey, in Lebanon or in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. The camps are dusty and muddy, and as refuges offer the most basic of human amenities to keep body and soul together. Those who fled, left their homes with little but the clothes on their backs. They have lost not only property and all their personal belongings, but sometimes members of their families to the conflict.

Their morale is exceptionally low, hoping that somehow all of the nightmare scenarios they have experienced, and now, from the safety of the camps sheltering them, hear that news second-hand. Some have small television sets and watch footage of the raging battles that have transformed their homeland into an inferno of hate and death.

Some, like the family quoted above heard from neighbours that their home had been taken by squatters. That lasted all of two days; the next message was that their house had been destroyed.

"We never saw this coming. It was bad when we left. [Late last year.] We cannot believe the battles that we see every day on television now." Their new, temporary home is a sea container, where they sit and watch Syrian state television along with Al Jazeera. Their new home is equipped with a propane heater, foam mattresses.

Nearby is the area where the World Food Program distributes food.When they had first arrived in the Jordanian desert camp there were about 25,000 refugees. The camp has gradually grown, concerning Jordan that its resources were being strained beyond its capacity to absorb the responsibility laid upon them. Most now in the camp live in tents, most arrive from Daraa.

An average of 18 tons of bread is distributed daily, along with other foods. At dawn the line-ups begin awaiting bread distribution. The prospects for peace seem dimmer as time goes by. There is a level of social cohesion in the camp, disrupted occasionally by episodic chaos and violence in the crowded, frightened atmosphere of people whose lives have been rent asunder.

The Syrian free rebels are furious at the lack of responsive help from the West. When Eysan is asked her opinion, she responded with a shrug. Syria's agony is one fraught with huge uncertainty. The outside world involvement would prove futile. Al-Assad's defeat is required and is inevitable, but when it happens, she fully anticipates a violent civil war to erupt.