Iraqi refugees weighing down Syria
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2007 3:22 PM
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On Assignment
By Dawna Friesen, NBC News Correspondent
DAMASCUS, Syria – To hear about the millions of refugees from Iraq is one thing. To see them, and speak to some of them, is quite another. All have tales of chaos and death.
It is a refugee crisis unlike any other in modern times.
There are no dramatic pictures of massive camps with UNHCR tents lined up row after row. No starving children waiting for food hand-outs.
That's because the estimated 1.5 million Iraqis who have flooded into Syria have melted into Damascus's already crowded streets. They live wherever they can, whole families crammed into tiny, seedy apartments with only the most basic of provisions.
According to the UNHCR, they are mostly middle class. Nothing has prepared them for the life as a refugee. Many have already used up their life savings.
While Syria has generously welcomed them, and gives them access to education for the children and subsidized health care, they do not have residency rights nor are they allowed to work.
Children bear the burden
The result? Many children are becoming the family breadwinners because they can slip more easily under the radar.
We met Youssef, 15, in a hole-in-the-wall grocery store in a Damascus laneway. He says he works 12 hours a day, seven days a week. He's been doing that ever since his mother, brother and sister fled Baghdad in 2004. They left after Youssef's older brother was shot and killed. His father died seven years ago.
So Youssef is effectively head of the household. He's remarkably cheerful, with bright brown eyes and an eager smile. I asked him what his dream for the future is. He told me he wants to go to university and become a doctor. Still so much hope, even though odds are he's probably not going to finish high school, never mind make it to university.
A potentially destabilizing force
The longer these child refugees linger in limbo, stateless and poor, the more likely they'll grow up angry and undereducated. A generation of Iraqis who feel alienated and disillusioned is hardly what the Middle East or the world needs.
The Syrians can see the dangers looming. Dr. Bashar Shaar, Syria's minister for Red Crescent Affairs, told me not only are the refugees a massive strain on the country's infrastructure, their presence could destabilize not only Syria, but the whole Middle East in the future. It is, he said, a ticking time bomb.
Ensuring the children of Iraqi refugees are cared for and get back in school seems as vital to the stability of region as fighting insurgents in Iraq.
