Bleak Ramadan for Zaatari camp residents

ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP –– Although the necessary food ingredients for traditional Ramadan dishes are all available at the Zaatari Refugee Camp, Mohammad Abbas sees a “bleak” fasting month ahead. 

The Syrian, who has been in the camp for a year-and-a-half, said Ramadan in refuge will never be the same as the one spent among friends and family at home.

“Here in the camp I have new neighbours that we are not used to so it is a new situation that affects the charm of Ramadan,” Abbas told The Jordan Times as he was shopping at a market in the camp, some 90km northeast of Amman. 

However, displacement is not the main reason that will make this year’s Ramadan a grim month, according to the father of eight. 

“Prices are soaring and we are not allowed to use the vouchers we receive in the outdoor markets, so we can’t get all the goods we need,” he noted.

Inaugurated in July 2012, Zaatari is among the largest refugee camps in the world, housing over 83,500 refugees, according to official figures.  

More than 600,000 refugees are registered in Jordan and around 100,000 reside in camps, according to Hovig Etyemezian, Zaatari camp manager. 

Adding to the bleakness of a month during which Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn to sunset, is the fact that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) was forced — due to lack of available resources — to decrease the value of assistance offered to Syrians. 

Joelle Eid, WFP communications officer for Syria and surrounding countries, said the WFP has been providing food assistance on a monthly basis for all refugee family in need since the conflict in Syria began. 

“In January [this year] we were forced for the first time to introduce reductions on the value of our assistance by 30 per cent in the region because of the lack of funds. 

“All refugees living in communities in Jordan Lebanon and Egypt have been affected by the 30 per cent reduction at the moment and refugees living in the camps have not been affected,” Eid told The Jordan Times in an interview at a shopping centre in the Zaatari camp. 

In January 2015, due to funding shortages, the agency was forced to cut the level of assistance for 450,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordanian host communities, from the planned JD20 to JD13 per person per month. 

Eid said with the approach of the fifth Ramadan since the Syrian conflict began, the longing that refugee families feel for their homes and relatives grows daily. 

“Our priority this Ramadan is to make sure that all families continue to receive help from the WFP even with the reductions that we were forced to make,” she added. 

Eid said the WFP official is also launching a fundraising campaign on social media, asking people to go on wfp.org/Ramadan and help support Syrians 

“We will continue to advocate for more funds... Outside Syria, we have close to 2 million receiving food assistance from the WFP on a monthly basis through our electronic cards system or e-vouchers programme, inside Syria close to 4 million receive our assistance,” Eid noted. 

Though the WFP decision did not affect Um Abdo, a Syrian woman who has been living in the camp for two years, being far away from her loved ones makes this Ramadan no different from last year.   

“We wish that we could be in our country because whatever we do we still feel like strangers here,” the mother of five said. 

She also complained about high prices at the camp. 

“We prefer to buy from outdoor markets at the camp because they are much cheaper than here [the shopping centre],” she added.  

However, this does not make Mohammad Homsi, a grocery vendor at the camp’s main outdoor market, optimistic about his business.  

“Though prices are cheap here for most refugees, the situation is really difficult financially and demand is not very high. There are no jobs and people depend on vouchers.”