‘I just want this situation to end’: What it’s really like in a Syrian refugee camp

That was written in bleeding red sharpie on the thin, mint-green flaps of a tent in a refugee camp. I saw it firsthand when I spent 10 days in Thessaloniki, Greece working for SAMS, the Syrian American Medical Society, which is an organization that provides medical care for refugees.

Every family gets one tent. The tents are about 10×10 feet in size and everything they own is kept in there. There are rows and rows of mint green tents, housed in abandoned warehouses tucked away in the middle of nowhere. It is dark, musty and the thick, wet air hangs heavy seeming to drag down the drooping clotheslines that are strung between tents like sad Christmas lights.

There are long lines that wrap around the warehouse during mealtimes. Every person gets three meals a day, provided by the Greek military. The meals are repetitive and not always nutritious – there was one camp I worked at where they had not eaten meat in months. Many of the children are underweight and malnourished. In some camps that have been running for longer, there are small schools that have been set up in empty corners of the warehouses or sheds near the property. They are completely optional and many of the kids simply do not go. There are also kids in the camps that have never been to school.

There is a surprising amount of liveliness in the camps. Six-year-olds across the globe are all cut from the same wonderfully-terrible, annoyingly-cute cloth. They are resilient in the face of any number of horrors and have an innocence and charm that can warm the coldest heart.

Some of the sweetest relationships to witness were between the tough Greek military men and the kids in the camps. A friend of mine had witnessed a police officer handing out packs of stickers to the kids. The moment their back was turned all the kids began decorating the military vehicles.

There are soccer matches where people will dress up and sit outside and cheer wildly for their team. There are days when someone will bring out speakers and all the men will do traditional dances together. There are small businesses set up in some of the camps run by people who had similar businesses back home. There is a barber that keeps the men looking sharp, there are clothing stores run by seamstresses and even delicious falafel shops set up by people who ran these businesses back in Syria.

The people – most from Syria, some from neighboring countries – are strong. They are resilient and powerful and care deeply that they uphold and maintain their dignity. This is what makes living in a camp so unbelievably difficult.

They do not have working papers so they cannot seek employment. People are free to leave the camp, but without a car or money there is very little they can do other than simply wait and hope that their family will be chosen to leave soon.

Despite the outward positivity, many people are rapidly losing hope. A lot of the people are suffering from depression, a lot of the kids have trouble sleeping at night. It is not always safe in the camps –many women are traveling alone with their children and sexual assault in the camps is not unheard of.

Some people have said that they would rather return to Syria than continue to live in the refugee camps because at least there is dignity in that.

Before this summer I never thought I could connect to their situation. I couldn’t imagine being told I have 30 minutes to evacuate my home. To simply run. Nothing in hand, nothing more to my name than the clothes on my back. Hearing that last week my brother had been shot at a peaceful protest. Remembering last night when my husband had been pulled out of our bed, pushed into the trunk of a car and driven off.

What would I tell my children as they cried through nightly bombings? How would you convince them to go to school when they have seen people being shot at checkpoints? How do you tell a child they do not get to be a child any longer?

Instead of learning math, they walk endless miles through dangerous cities. Instead of roller coasters and amusement parks they cross borders armed with snipers. They don’t get swimming lessons, but take a raft across oceans in the dead of night. They are giving away their childhood to grow up in a tent.

They are not free. They don’t have many options for the future and it is not quite a fair shot in life… but hey – their heart is still beating.

This is the reality for millions and millions of people today. It is a completely unfathomable situation but the people are so, so much more relatable than I ever thought they could be.

Ghalia Hassino lives in the refugee camps in Greece with her husband and eight children. Her family had lived happily in Aleppo for a long time – she worked in hospitals and schools and helped to provide for her family. She said that although they were poor, they were happy. All of her children were alive and under one roof.

Today, Ghalia’s family is scattered across the globe. One son escaped to Germany before the war began, another was shot at a wedding, a third was taken to a military prison and has since gone missing. She took the rest of her children – three of whom were under the age of eight – and left Aleppo. Her family currently shares two tents among the eight of them. Ghalia lives with her husband – who was diagnosed with cancer two years ago.

She talked about her journey to Turkey through borders armed with snipers, the raft ride with three little crying kids, the heat in Greece, the mosquitos, the sickness, the boredom. Her tone was stoic but her eyes were empty. She offered us coffee and biscuits multiple times throughout the conversation.

She told me the reason she agreed to speak with me was that her brother had been missing and she hoped that someone would hear her story and bring her information about his whereabouts. She asked me to quote her saying, “I lost my son and now my brother. My heart is so torn about my son, it is enough. The loss of my son is enough. I wish they could find my brother.”

I kept asking her, “what can I do?” Selfishly, I wanted her to tell me that she needed shoes or a fan or food – I wanted her to name something tangible I could run out and get for her.

But every time I asked her answer was the same: “I just want this situation to end.”

These aren’t people asking for handouts. These are people asking for a chance. The same chance we all want. To grow old. To be safe. To be happy and healthy and well fed with a roof overhead. To know that their kids will not grow up in a warehouse and they will be educated and they will have the opportunity to have a better life than what is held in a 10×10 tent.

To hope.

You can help refugees on many different degrees. If you want to donate to organizations doing work on the ground, this is how.