“I need a day or two to tell you all about my hardships”

 

Stories of female Syrian refugees in Jordan

These stories were documented by CARE in Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp, where CARE ensures refugees’ access to services and information. CARE centers host events, information sessions, case management, psychosocial support, day care, recreational activities, sports, non-formal educational and vocational trainings such as tailoring, cosmetology, and computer maintenance. We provide refugees with daily access to tablets, laptops, and a library for educational trainings or communicating with family abroad. CARE also manages the camp’s incentive-based volunteering program which provides refugees with opportunities in a variety of non-governmental organizations working in the camp as well as the complaints and feedback on behalf of all operating agencies.

 

UM AISHA[1]

I go by the name of Um Aisha. I am 32 years old, and I lived in Qusair in Syria. I came to Jordan because I have family members who live here. I also have a brother who is in a Syrian prison now. He got married and became the father of a beautiful baby boy. He used to carry his child and run around filled with happiness. We honestly believed that if you had nothing to do with the war, nothing would happen to you. But we were wrong. My brother was captured and taken to prison when his son was only three months old.

My husband and I had property and some money but we had to leave everything behind. We decided to move to my home town in Mheen to start over. We built a house and bought land because we are farmers, this was our livelihood. Two years later, the conflict came to Mheen and we had to flee to another village. A few months later we were informed that it was safe to return to Qusair. Although we found our house burnt to the ground and all our belongings stolen we thanked God for our safety. Since our land was still there we believed that everything else could be compensated.

My husband and I rebuilt everything from scratch and started over again. A few months later we heard about armed groups coming to our town. Everything was a mess; confusion about the situation was the only evident thing. No one knew which group was fighting for which purpose. We were lost and we no longer knew who was right and who was wrong.

I have one daughter, Fatima, but I had over four miscarriages; all in the third trimester of my pregnancy. Once, while I was nine months pregnant I heard the sounds of the airplanes and the barrel bombs and I got so shocked that I had a miscarriage. Once I gave birth to a baby boy but he only lived for a week because he needed to be in an incubator – and hospitals in war zones are not equipped with these things. What can I tell about the suffering and hardship that we went through? It is inexplicable.

One day I was visiting my extended family who lived about ten meters away. The fighting became so intense that I didn’t dare going back to my house. There was panic and confusion and while I fled with my daughter I got separated from my husband who ran in the opposite direction.

We travelled for five hours until we reached the desert. We stayed there for five months in the hope that our village would be safe again and we could return. But we lost hope eventually and went with the rest of the displaced people making their way to the Jordanian border. I surrendered to the fact that I was amidst strangers, and whatever was going to happen to them, would happen to me and my daughter. I had to run away from land mines and the air raids. And I can tell you that the air raids targeted civilians. In this conflict, civilians are hurt the most.

One day during our journey we rested in a small village. People were standing in line to buy bread at the local bakery. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was an air raid hitting the bakery. In front of my eyes I saw over 25 people die, most of them children. I saw a woman losing two of her children in that raid. She was just a few meters from where the bomb hit, and she was watching them die in shock, just standing there. I know that the mother will never return to her old self. It is a sad reality: Almost everyone I know has lost a child or a relative because of the war.

I lived through so many horrors. I’m 32 years old but my hair is white. Can you imagine walking around after an air raid and seeing human limbs on the ground? Men at a young age that should be studying, getting married or raising their children were getting recruited or if not, getting decapitated and slaughtered like farm animals. And some of these young men were your neighbours, friends’ sons, and relatives, and you know them and you know that they don’t deserve this.

My life in Syria was wonderful. I was living in a beautiful green village; I was living in freedom. We used to visit many of our relatives’ and friends’ homes to spend the evenings and have fun. But this freedom and safety was taken away from us in a very heinous manner.

I will never forget the day when my husband became sick. I thought he would die. We were still in our home back in Syria, it happened when the fighting intensified. One day, my husband stopped breathing smoothly. His eyes were moving frantically as if searching for that breath of air that he was trying to inhale. There was no ambulance to transport him to a hospital, and the local doctor had been kidnapped. My husband was choking and I was standing there unable to do anything. Thankfully, God gave him another chance and four hours later he got his breath back.

Two months after I reached Jordan, someone showed me a picture of my husband on Facebook with a caption that declared his death.

I had never thought about working until I came here. Back in Syria my husband provided me with everything. Even doing house chores and simple knitting projects, he would ask me to stop working and jokingly pay me triple the price I would get if I sold the knitted items. He loved me and treated me with utmost respect. He never wanted me to go through any hardship in my life. If only he could see me now. I cannot work and I don’t even have enough money to buy my daughter a cookie. I feel so helpless and heartbroken when she sees other children eating sweets and I don’t have a single lira to buy her anything. All I want now is to find work to be able to provide for my daughter.

 

LAILA

My Name is Laila, I am 37 years old. I come from Deir El Zor. I am alone and I have children to take care of. My husband works in Jordan as a shepherd. Back home in Syria, one night at 2 am, an air raid started, and there was so much noise and confusion. Suddenly an armed group forcefully entered my house, they kicked me and the children out. It was snowing, but I carried my children and ran out because I was scared that they would kill us. Human life has no value nowadays.

I moved to another village and stayed there for a month before I had to move again to a school that became a shelter for displaced people. After eight months, the school got so crowded with people and children. We were targeted like sitting ducks, afraid of new attacks, and the safest option was to move again.

I went to the outskirts of the village and built a shelter in the hopes that we will be safe - but to no avail. It was as if we were followed by terror no matter where we go. There were even tunnels underneath us where armed groups hid and stored weapons. I called my husband in Jordan and told him that I can no longer tolerate this life. I was moving constantly with three very young children. I barely slept, fearing that something might happen to us.

I had a very good life before the dreaded war started. My husband worked for eight months in Jordan each year, the rest he stayed with us. I was living freely, I would go to the market whenever needed. But the war stopped us from being able to move around, as roads were blocked and we were trapped most of the time. They took my home away from me by force, and later they destroyed it and reduced it to rubbles. I no longer have a home.

When I left, I had only the clothes that I was wearing as it was impossible to pack any belongings. Every time we were forced to move my heart broke; my children were wailing uncontrollably from sadness and fear, and I would comfort them and say that we were going to leave this place and go somewhere better, although I knew that it wasn’t true. What’s better than home? Nowhere is better. Syria is ruined.

My children started to get night terrors from the number of times they had to witness bombings and people dying. The noises of the airplanes and the air raids would send them into crying fits. I moved with them so many times and from shelter to house to tents to mud houses; there was no type of shelter that we didn’t live in. Eventually terror and war spread all over my beloved country and Jordan was the only place I could seek refuge in. Thank God there is safety in Jordan, and I thank the Jordanians and wish for them peace in their country.

I hope and dream that the situation will get better. If not, and if I have to stay in Jordan, I hope that I can get an education for my children. My eldest child is eight years old and hasn’t started first grade yet. It would be such a shame for my children to be uneducated. I am illiterate, and I don’t want my children to be like me. The terror that we went through destroyed everything but at least we can still dream, right?

 

RUQAYYA

My name is Ruqayya, I am 38 years old, and I come from Al Ghouta in rural Damascus. I left Al Ghouta in order to seek treatment for my daughter who has severe anemia and needs frequent blood transfusions. She usually requires a transfusion every three months and sometimes during extreme heat or cold her red blood cell count drops very low.

I left Syria to get treatment and education for my children. I had to get blood tests for my daughter monthly, sometimes I would delay it a week or two depending on the situation. During the last period of my life in Syria it became impossible for me to keep my daughter monitored and healthy. When I went to live at my sisters’ house, I felt that we were a burden on them. My two sisters lived in one house with their husbands; each in a big room. I stayed in the kitchen with my children, all sleeping two worn out mattresses.

One of my sons remained in Syria with his father, and another is living in Damascus with my sister to take his final year exam at school. If he leaves now, he would lose his entire education.

Since the war started, my children’s situation deteriorated in many areas. We used to be a close family, my children would be surrounded by their father and their eldest siblings. I start to feel that my power on them as a mother has weakened, and they began to undermine my authority. In Syria, I said something once and never had to repeat it again. Bedtime meant bedtime! Now, they don’t know discipline. An entire generation is ruined because of this war. We might understand the implications of this war on our children, but they will never understand what they are missing, and what their lives might have been. The teenagers have it even worse, because they become rebellious and start to either enlist themselves with whatever armed group and die fighting.

I would probably need a day or two to tell you about all the hardship that I went through. I suffered so much, it was like living in hell. Sometimes we had no food at all, and the only available thing was salt. So I would dissolve salt in water and make my children drink it just to fill their stomachs with something. They would smell the neighbours cooking rice or lentils and they would say: “Oh, how lucky our neighbours are.” We ate tree leaves, we ate animal feed! Anything would do. My children’s bodies became so frail. I was so helpless and weak, I couldn’t provide for my family. I would look at them and ask: “Are you hungry?” They wouldn’t say ‘yes’ so my feelings wouldn’t get hurt, but instead ask me back: “Are you?”

Before the war, I was living for 14 years with my husband and children in one room. The year before the war started, we made some money and were able to build an extension to our house. I felt like a queen in this simple life. My husband would cut lumber and sell it, and we were at least living safely with our bellies full. My whole life I wanted an automatic washing machine, and finally able to buy one. Sadly this good life only lasted for seven months. Then our house was destroyed. Gone was the washing machine. We had to move. I loved my home so much, I was almost the last one to flee the village because I didn’t want to leave all the hard work that went into my home.

I look back and I thank God we are in Jordan now. I am grateful though that my whole family is alive. All I want is peace to return to Syria. I want to take my children and go back and live in a tent. I’ll wait another 14 years to have a two-room house and an automatic washing machine.

 

Read more about CARE's work in Jordan here 


[1] In order to protect the women’s identities, names have been changed and photos cannot be provided.