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APPROXIMATELY 300,000 REFUGEES have crossed the border from Syria into Jordan, with more than 10,000 having fled there in the last week alone.
One of the groups on the ground is the Red Cross. Secretary General of the Irish Red Cross Donal Forde has recently returned from the Zaatri Refugee Camp on Jordan’s border with Syria, and is stressing the need for continued support for families forced from their homes and country by the ongoing conflict in Syria.
The Cyber City Transit Camp for Syrian Refugees in Jordan is home to thousands of refugees. One woman, Ms Saeydi, told the Red Cross her story. She said that after witnessing the death of her close neighbour and seeing her community attacked, she felt it was unsafe to stay in Syria.
A heavily pregnant Saeydi brought her children over the border into Jordan, and is pictured in the slideshow below with her son, Abdullah (now 4 months old), who was born in a refugee camp near Mafraq, where the family now live.
Refugees
Along with other humanitarian agencies, Red Cross Red Crescent teams are actively responding to the constant flow of refugees entering the country.
Donal Forde explained to TheJournal.ie that there are 2 – 3 million people displaced from Syria, while 1 million have left the country and are being housed in refugee camps or in communities.
Typically people have arrived in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, with Jordan – which has a population similar to Ireland – seeing about 300,000 people having crossed over. “It’s a poor country so it’s trying to cope with that,” said Forde.
In many cases [Syrians] are coming incomplete as a family; members have been shot or killed, husbands are on the run. You get mothers coming across with big families.
The Irish Red Cross does not have a team on the ground, but members visited the Jordan camp from Ireland to see how resources can be best used. The Jordan camps hold around 80,000 people and the rest are being looked after in local communities. “It’s putting quite a strain on every public service,” said Forde. “They are organising as best they can but generally they are being overwhelmed.”
With around 2,000 people crossing the border from Syria every night, and no end in sight to the current conflict, the strain on resources is only going to grow larger.
When you go the places like this, your sense is the immediate need of food and shelter. The bit that strikes you is everyone you talk to has a very harrowing story to tell. The despair they feel sitting here… there is no sense of how they get reconnected with home, or relatives missing. There is no sense of how long this is going to continue.
“For now, those that is the most striking aspect of any engagement with people over there,” said Forde. “The awful sense of hopelessness, despair, uncertainty.”
Pressing issues include medical facilities, connecting people there with people back in Syria, helping those in the community, and counselling.
People can donate to the Red Cross via the Irish Red Cross website. “We are very grateful to those who have supported us thus far,” said Forde.
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Another sorry example of what happens when the US/NATO/Saudi Arabia/Qatar et al arm, train, fund Islamic mercenaries and send them into Syria to commit terrible atrocities.
People still believe this is largely a rebellion by the populace against the Syrian government. This could not be further from the truth.
Why is it not being reported in the corporate media that the Syrian government enjoys the support of the vast majority of the population?
Surely such a piece of knowledge would be widely reported unless of course it didn’t fit the geo political aims of the external powers who are meddling in Syrian affairs.
B Lowe
And your post is a sorry example of skewed opinion based on the total ignorance of facts and a sycophantic obsession with dictators and their sick cruel regimes.
B Lowe you are right, again!
Surely those captions should read Red Crescent’ and not ‘Red Cross’ since these refugees are Muslim and vehemently oppose any mention or symbol of the cross. Still I’m sure it wasn’t a barrier to their acceptance of the donation of €9 million in aid paid over our government last week
What a silly, selfish and uninformed comment.
Ireland isn’t the only country on the planet you know, we’re certainly not the worst off, take off the “woe is me” hat, it’ll make you feel good!
How,as a country of 4 million people, with just over 1 million working, can we afford to pay €9 million to Syria a country surrounded by immensely oil rich countries and €638 million every year to Africa. There is always someone worse off than you, the well worn maxim. What about charity begins athome
Have you ever been to Africa (not the holiday destinations, but the real Africa)? Or Syria? Or the Philippines, or Haiti, or quite a few of the Caribbean islands, or central / South America? Have you ever worked with these people?
I’ve spent quite a lot of holidays volunteering in these places and I can tell you that the €9m, or the €638m is loose change in comparison to what these people need!
The National Children’s hospital will cost €500m to build, these countries don’t have hospitals! When they do they’re not clean, they don’t have windows, they don’t have roads to get to them, they don’t have sewage pipes to take away the dirty water, they barely have running water which is rationed due to its scarcity, they have electricity by way of a battery and power generator, they often reuse syringes and other “one life” products… They reuse syringes in the very areas that have their very own HIV strain!
Besides, if we kept that money we’d probably do something stupid with it anyway.
I didn’t see Ireland refusing the 90billion bailout either… People like u really get under my skin.. You’re a small minded idiot… What the hell has religion got to do with it?
Why are there so many children been born into situations like this. I just don’t understand it
Catherine, perhaps the hope is that maybe at least one will survive. The mortality rate for children in these countries can’t be great. But, hey, such is the price of democracy!
Another shocking example of what happens when the US and NATO arm, train, fund Islamic mercenaries and send them into Syria to commit terrible atrocities! U.S.= :( Russian Federation and china must put much more pressure on yankees!!
Is that you B Lowe?
Any thoughts on Syria’s military hardware? It’s russian right?
The US as of now has only given non- lethal aid to a select few on the rebel side. There is talk of arming the rebel side but again only a select few. There is talk of European countries going ahead of the US and arming the rebel side. So how can you say that they have already been armed and trained by the US/NATO etc?
The bailout is a loan to be paid back by the taxpayer. I’d hazard a guess that 638 million euro is more than small change to everyone in Ireland and what a pompous assumption that if we had 638million euro we’d do something stupid with it. I think the Empire had the fostered the same notion
Afraid not. Despite what SteoG and his active imagination might believe I only post with BLowe.
Re Declan.
It simply is not true that the US has only given non lethal aid.
NATO has supplied these Islamic jihadists with surface to air missiles and other lethal weaponry. The US is simply using NATO as cover.
Also, the US is providing billions of arms to Qatar and Qatar is arming the mainly foreign Islamic jihadists(aka ‘rebels’) with lethal weaponry.
Perhaps you can provide us with some proof of that BLowe?
Re Mattoid.
Just Google it Mattoid. The whole NATO giving surface to air missiles to ‘rebels’ through NATO was well documented in November ’12 I think. Hillary Clinton organised and sanctioned it.
It is true though.
I’ll post later if I have time. Busy at moment.
I think you’re getting confused BLowe.
Turkey requested (and were granted) patriot defence system missiles to deploy along its border as it feared an air/missile attack from the Syrian regime. Is this what you’re referring to?
BLowe
I am afraid the evidence of your posts shows that you are the one with the overactive imagination. That in itself is not a problem, however, when someone cannot separate fact from fiction, believes blatant propaganda, as fact, and defines the world using fiction and spurious information, ignores blatant undeniable facts that don’t fit into their twisted world conspiracy agenda, then, there is something amiss.
Re Mattoid.
No, I am not referring to the Patriot missiles. That’s an entirely different matter.
I am referring to the fact that NATO has supplied surface to air missiles to these Islamic jihadists and trained them.
This a well known piece of information.
Re SteoG
Your entitled to your opinion. Mine is an alternative viewpoint. Alternative viewpoints are a good thing. Believe what you will.
@BLowe
Then I’ll ask you again for some proof of this “well known piece of information” of yours…
Please don’t keep us waiting too long…
@B Lowe
2 questions if I might:
1. Have you ever been to Syria or anywhere else in the region?
2. What are the principle sources you use to get your info on Syria?
Genuine questions, a chara.
B Lowe
The problem is that your viewpoint is so one sided it is almost a word for word repetition of the Syrian government media spun propaganda.
@BLowe
OK, at this stage I’m guessing you have no proof, just parroting Syrian regime propaganda.
have your say