ZAATARI, Jordan – One-year-old Ali Ghazawi, born with a heart defect, faced a battle for survival even before his family fled Syria's civil war. It was a struggle he lost two weeks ago in the bitter winter cold of a tented refugee camp in north Jordan. Ali died two days after undergoing a heart operation in Zaatari camp, which houses at least 32,000 refugees who escaped fierce bombardment in Syria's rebellious southern province of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad. “I covered my son with two blankets, but he was not warming up, and he turned blue before he passed away in my hands,” said his sobbing 22-year-old mother, alone with a three-year-old daughter after she left her husband in Deraa and crossed the border in November. Ali was the fourth baby to die in three weeks in the windswept camp. United Nations aid workers say none of the deaths were the direct result of conditions in Zaatari, yet they highlight the challenge facing relief agencies scrambling to provide basic shelter for half a million refugees in the region. “These deaths are a result of cumulative factors, some related to shortage in needs and natural causes. But on top of that, the reality that conditions are harsh cannot be ignored,” said Saba Mobaslat, programme director at Save the Children. Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey each host more than 130,000 registered refugees, and relief workers predict the numbers will only increase as violence escalates around the capital Damascus. Mirroring Syria's youthful population, almost 65 percent of Jordan's camp residents are newborns and young children. “Every night we are getting children as young as four days old, six days old, one week, two weeks old, and it's a real struggle to try to make sure that everyone survives,” said Andrew Harper, Jordan head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “Women are giving birth on the border, and people are coming across pregnant. It's a situation where we just need to redouble efforts, particularly as we move into winter, because you have hundreds of pregnant women who cross the border,” Harper said. Families often send the most vulnerable to safety, he added, so alongside the very young in Zaatari are many older refugees. “Last night we had a couple who were 97 years old,” he said. Along the main road in the middle of the camp's muddy and gravel streets, children of all ages race around the makeshift market place that sprang up after the camp opened in July. Many families join in, out of enterprise or necessity, selling everything from hot falafel to household goods, old clothing and fresh vegetables. “It's a children's camp. You walk into it and there are children everywhere. It's in your face. The male adults are staying behind, and a woman comes with 10 children without her bread earner,” Mobaslat added. – Reuters
