Reports | 25 05 2020
Northern Syria considered to be the largest gathering place for the refugees’ camps inside the country, where displace people reside within huge gatherings, with more than 190 camps in the northern and southern countryside of Idlib on the Syrian-Turkish border.
“Kassar Maksous” a worker in Cham humanitarian organization said to Rozana: "According to the latest statistics of the camps’ number in the southern countryside of Idlib, there are seven concentrations of displaced people, the total number of people in these camps is about 3515 people."
He confirms that these camps lack the most basic necessities services of life, and suffer from frequent raids by warplanes and missiles, "what prompt those in charge of such gatherings to disperse the scattered tents."
“Atmah” camp is the largest
Atmah camp, which was established three years ago, is one of the largest camps in the north of the Syrian in terms of the number of the displaced people, where according to the latest statistics it includes more than 73 thousand people, and several local and international humanitarian organizations support it.
"In the beginning of the bombardment on the Syrian areas, the residents displaced to the Turkish border, and İHH has put random tents among the olive trees for families located within the town of Atmah, but the region was soon overwhelmed with displaced people, and then Atmah camp was opened and renamed with “Olive Camp”, and after that, opening of the camps keep going until it reached the number to 66 camps, resided by about 73 thousand people, "said Abu Mohamed, the camp manager.
Atmah gathering is suffering from lack of services and is characterized by its random camps, and the lack of regulation for roads and sewage networks, what caused many epidemics and diseases. Some organizations provided some health services, but did not include except 50% of the displaced, other organizations provides food baskets for each family.
“Dignity Camps” without services
Dignity Camps is the second largest gathering on the Turkish border in northern Syria, it was established in the beginning of 2013, and includes more than 64 camps, the number of individuals in each camp exceeded 53 thousand people.
There are 12 thousand families within the gathering, who came Idlib countryside, Aleppo, northern Hama, and some of them are from Homs, the gathering is suffering of bad services like other camps in the region, bad education, health, and public services.
Ali Hamza, one of the manager in the Dignity camps, he said to Rozana: "all the roads in the gathering are unpaved, the sewer is very bad, and educational status is unacceptable. There are a large number of patients, disabled and elderly people, need to be addressed and there is no support for them."
Semi villages!
Many camps turned into semi villages after the population began to build small random rooms for several reasons, like the wearing out tents and because most of the people are convinced that the Syrian crisis will take a long time what make them lost the hope to return to their homes.
Abu Yasser, a resident of Atma camp, spoke to Rozana saying: "After we have been displaced and came here, we thought that we are coming back after a month or two, we resided for more than a year in tents were given to us as soon as we arrived, but it was molded out due to the weather, frost, rain, cold, and heat."
Abu Yasser added: "We had to build the rooms, although our financial circumstances were difficult, where the cost of building a room of 16 square meters is about 100 thousand Syrian pounds, and one room is not enough for a large family, so they need two or more."
Said Rahal, from Damascus, who fled to the camps in the north and built a small room after his tent was wear, and the man is suffering from the difficulties in basic services, drinking water like the others, according to his interview with Rozana.
The numbers of displaced Syrians are increasing day after day, with the ongoing fighting and the intensification of the bombing of their areas, and the organizations are no more able to provide the most basic necessities of life for those huge numbers, which exceeded 200 thousand displaced people in the camps.
