Capturing the plight of Syria’s refugees

Capturing the plight of Syria’s refugees Sarah Young / 23 June 2013 From an elderly woman forced to watch the murder of her husband, to the young man who suddenly finds himself a father of three — a new photography exhibition opening in Dubai this week hopes to open people’s eyes to the heartbreaking effects of civil war on the Syrian people. Victims of War, an exhibition featuring the work of Hermoine Macura, a Dubai-based Australian journalist who has worked in the Middle East for 12 years, will be on display at Pro Art Gallery from June 25. Macura said the non-political and non-governmental project, with its focus on highlighting humanitarian crises and suffering in Syria, was the hardest and most heart-breaking work she had done in the Middle East. The photos were taken in late December last year and early January, mainly at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, near the town of Masraq about 30 to 50 kilometres from Syria, where thousands of refugees were arriving daily, she said. “Children with special needs, people in wheelchairs, people having to be carried over the border, elderly…like a swarm through the sandstorms…imagine a sandstorm in Dubai times ten. You could barely see. “Some women were giving birth on the border with no medical care.” But what troubled her the most were the sexual and gender-based crimes against women. “Some women were tortured and raped with animals and rodents. Girls as young as 10, 11, 12 raped, tortured and mutilated. I have never seen such extreme cases of torture like this in the Middle East, even when I was in Iraq. Humanitarian organisations had to bring in psychologists and counsellors to deal with the trauma, she said. “The cultural shame and embarrassment attracted to (rape) made it very difficult for people to seek medical treatment…many were suffering in silence. “As an outsider it was just shocking. We don’t get to see how people really suffer. We get desensitised, and there’s nothing focused on highlighting this. It took a long time to digest what she had seen. “Every single person stays in my eyes, heart and mind. “When you see things like this, it makes you more sensitive to choosing diplomatic solutions over war…everyone is so quick to take that option (of war), especially when you live in priviledged societies where you’re safe and secure, but they don’t realise the consequences, the damage on generations of people and how it affects society as a whole. While those living in the UAE were blessed, people living in other parts of the Arab world were not. “I really don’t know what will happen to them. If you look at Iraq before the Gulf War, it was a very rich country, and if you go there now the Iraqi people are in poverty. A lot of women are turning to prostitution.” Eighty per cent of the refugees she saw were women and children. “In any situation of lawlessness, the women and children are going to suffer the most. “When you break the woman you break the society. She’s raising the children, holding everyone and the community together.” While she saw very few men, she could vividly recall one who had adopted the children of his two brothers who had been killed, and taken them across the border. “This was a single, unmarried man who was now a father of three children at 25 years old. He took these kids across the border and is now in a camp trying to plan or work out how do you move on from this.” Another face which stuck with her was that of a woman in her 80s. “Gangs came to her house. They killed her husband and burnt her house to the ground in front of her. She has nothing. She came across that border by herself. It was unusual to see elderly people being attacked in the Middle East, she said. “People work their whole lives for their home. Now she’s got nothing. She said ‘I can’t stay here because this is not my country. But there’s nothing for me at home either. I don’t know what to do’. “My camera man had to stop shooting because he was crying. It was so, so sad.” The two images that stuck with her the most, though, were of children. The first is of three disabled boys, standing in a desert storm trying to close their jackets with what was left of their arms. “They were like scarecrows on the rocks. To see young lives just blowing or withering in the wind…it was very disturbing. “This was the first project where I got to see how children and people with special needs suffered…there were not enough wheelchairs, kids had to sit on the floor or in a makeshift box with wheels.” The other image was of a little girl, about nine, outside a medical facility waiting for treatment. “It was the determination in her face…I felt that was a ray of hope. I could feel the spirit of the Syrian people in that young girl…who had come by herself, and was still holding it together. I just hope when people see these images they can see the humanitarian crisis, (but also) the people — that there is hope too, not just suffering.” The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR, medical staff, and volunteer camp workers, were doing an “amazing job”. “(UNHCR have) poured $1 million into refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. “Compared to what the Palestinians had to endure in the camps in Lebanon, this is really good. The shelters and tents are like little villages, housing more than 100,000 people. She said she was impressed with the high donations being made by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, even though the countries did not shout about it. Expert doctors also flew in every ten days from the Gulf states and some children were flown to GCC countries for specialised surgery, she said. “So in that darkness, there was some hope that came to light…some kids were born with a club foot but were so poor, or lived in such remote parts, they had never been able to be treated. And now they could be.” According to the UNHCR website, more than 1.6 million Syrian refugees are being hosted in foreign countries, with the majority in Lebanon and Jordan — and more than one million of those arrived in the first five months of 2013 alone. Women and children make up three-quarters of the refugee population. If current trends persisted, it could be expected that more than three million Syrians would have left their country by the end of this year, the website said. The exhibition will be going to Qatar and New York with all profits being donated to humanitarian organisations such as UNHCR. It opens at 7pm on June 25 and runs until July 15, at Pro Art Gallery in the Palm Strip Shopping Mall on Jumeirah Beach Road, Jumeirah 1. See www.victimsofwar.ae . sarah@khaleejtimes.com Taylor Scott International