YonaVisuals 

      ZAATARI Camp Refugees,

     2013 February

​

This refugees camp is located by the Syrian border, in north of Jordan . The camp has opened since 2012 august . Our team was a member of the association Gynegologist Without Border. The mission of the association is to take care of pregnant woman who are many on the camp. 

We had only just arrived at the camp, a siren rang out. We had to get back into our tent and stay in it.  

Doing nothing, saying nothing, understand nothing and waiting. 

This is not a natural behavior for the member of our team but we obey scrupulously.

Outside, there are screams, sounds of explosions, smell of acrid smoke...After some time, the alarm stopped. We were allowed to get back to our activities. We didn't yet unpack our luggage.

As I was watching our beds in the dormitory under the tent,  I thought that people of camp had to live this kind of alert each day. Our team was just passing through. 

​

We quickly took the habits of camp's life.  We received the woman under the tents for the examination, practiced deliveries, handle stocks of furnitures. The force of professional habits and details of life got the upper hand on the feeling of oddness and  insecurity we first felt. 

Some kind of routine is sometimes a good thing. 

Sometimes, we got out of the enclosure where our tents are standing. 

In the Zaatari Camp, we can find shop that sell anything, knickknacks, things  to get everyday life easier, clothes, wedding dresses...

So, people got maried?...Yes, someone explained to me that it is even better being a maried woman than a virgin young girl in the camp... But, Better for who, exactly? ...

Sometimes, there no good choice to make. 

Under the dust and the warmth of the day, tankers used to ride across the camp, reminding us that we are in the middle of a desert of stones and wind. 

Laundry dries between blue and white tents of the UNHCR. Children clothes, sheets, frayed shirts.

Groups of kids sometimes came with us. They are friendly, smiley,  nicely boisterous. 

At night,  we had difficulties to keep the newborns warm enough. Indeed, in this desert, February nights are cold.

Yet, after a successful delivery, when the mother and the child were both safe, leaving the delivery tent for a moment, watching the pure night sky, remained a great pleasure. 

To warm us, we had movables radiators; It was forbidden to put something on it, because of the risk of fire. However, it was so col that we did it anyway and put the little bay cloths on it for a few minutes. So, after the warmth of his mother's skin, the baby found  warms clothes.  

Out our wall of hessian, women's cry  escaped. Deliveries are painful. We don't have the possibilité of epidural analgesia. Sometimes, these young mothers are not yet women...As if it was just a bad dream...Those nagging cry will last to erase from our heads. ..

When a woman was in labour, we asked her to walk around the main tent. They are always escorted by another woman, a sister, a cousin, a neighbor meet on the camp. Some of them had lost a close family member, a husband, a child, a father...

One day, a woman came to us, I don't know how. She came not from the camp but from the road. She was probably at the end of her pregnancy after her belly, she was dehydrated and exhausted. The heart beat of her baby was too slow. Since how long so slow? We practiced a caesarean section. She and her baby were healthy. 

Zaatari camp still exists. It is a whole city, now. 

The babies who was born groomed up.

Many of them only know of the world that camp. 

​

​

​

​