(Al-Mafraq, Jordan) 25 February 2013 -- Leila fled to Jordan with her two young children nearly a year ago, as she feared that they would not live to see another day if they stayed in Syria.

When other ICMC caseworkers and I entered her bare apartment in Al-Mafraq, it was obvious that Leila’s two children shared her resilience. They were quick to scurry around, crawling over laps and digging into their packets of crisps, trying to conceal the excitement that our visit had triggered.

Like thousands of other Syrian refugees, Leila has to endure extreme hardships mostly on her own, but still manages to take everyday as it comes. We sat down on a thin mattress on the floor, and Leila went on to tell us how she had fled her home country in March 2012.

Leila lived near the National Hospital, at the time when the city of Homs was the centre of violent shelling and civil unrest. One day, while she was hanging her laundry to dry outside, bullets started flying past her left and right. The bombings were only getting worse. Leila then heard that her neighbour’s daughter had been raped. That was it; to protect her own children, she decided to flee Homs.

In the morning, Leila and her family decided to relocate to Damascus, the capital, as it was still safe at the time. They rented an apartment there with a little money lent to them by relatives.

But Leila felt isolated and stigmatized there and sought other options.

Some two months later, Leila found a taxi driver who, for 500 Jordanian Dinars (about 700 U.S. dollars) – more than double what most Syrians earn per month – agreed to drive her and her two children to the border. The rest of the family decided it was too risky to try crossing into Jordan again and stayed behind.

Leila made the decision not to tell her husband, who was fighting along with the opposition, that she was going to try to leave Syria again. She had only 100 JD (about US$140) in her pocket and no relatives to go to in Jordan. “When I need to be strong for my children, I forget I have a husband and do what it takes,” Leila said, reflecting on her flight. “But I also like adventure and travelling!” she adds jokingly.

A second passport stamp for a new life

In exchange for her wedding ring and a gold bracelet she had received from her parents, the border officer allowed her to cross the border; slapping a large “CANCELLED” over the previous “EXIT FORBIDDEN” stamp she had on her passport.

When Leila arrived in the border city of Al-Mafraq, about 20 km from the Syrian border, she spent the first night with Syrian acquaintances. The next day she started walking around the town searching for an apartment to rent.

She finally found a two-room apartment for 170 JD (240 US$) per month and quickly moved in with her two children. Leila then went on to try to recreate in Mafraq a new – albeit temporary – home for her two children.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which shares 370 km of border with Syria, has a tradition of hospitality towards asylum-seekers and refugees. Today it is home to a total of 451,000 registered refugees, including this new wave of refugees from Syria and the 29,000 Iraqi refugees it already hosts, severely straining the country’s economic resources and social services.

During one of their regular community visits to identify the most vulnerable among the Syrian refugees living in Jordan, ICMC staff heard about Leila’s precarious situation Alone, with two young children, aged one-and-a-half and fours years old, and with no savings or income, Leila was facing imminent eviction for unpaid rent. ICMC gave her the equivalent of three months of rent and baby packages to last her until the end of January.

This assistance gave her some temporary breathing space. Leila had until then been financially supported by her sisters-in-law who had found work harvesting olives in a nearby village. Leila has a university degree from Syria, and hopes to find work in the local hospital. Yet she first needs to enrol her son in school, which is proving difficult.

She noticed her son was showing signs of trauma. She tries to engage him by asking him to help with the daily chores around the house or to take the trash out, as he tends to isolate himself from others.

 
Door to a Refugee home in Al-Mafraq, Jordan

A semblance of normality

Leila recalls with anguish the first time he asked why they could not go back home and why they were waiting in line in the cold every day. That is when Leila decided to stop going out to seek assistance from different local institutions or NGOs even if it meant getting less access to help. It was a tough choice, but an obvious one for her.

To cope with this stressful and destabilizing situation, she tried to create a semblance of normality for her children. She takes it upon herself to silently find a way out of this nightmare, for her children to be able to simply enjoy their childhood without having to struggle to survive or long for those they left behind. This is a battle she is determined to win.

“I now stay home with the children to fool them into thinking that everything is okay,” Leila explains.

She worries all the more now that the ICMC assistance has ended. She cannot keep on depending on her family and her landlord plans to increase the rent. She was able to convince him that she will soon manage to pay rent. “I really don’t know how I’ll make ends meet,” she said, turning her eyes away.

When I ask her what she hopes for, Leila does not hesitate: “To go back home.”

As if she has been holding them back throughout the interview, tears start running down her cheeks.

She quickly leaves the room, and comes back with a smile on her face as she brushes back her daughter’s hair.

Going back to Syria now is not an option while the war continues to escalate. Clashes between the Free Syrian Army and regime forces are reportedly becoming increasingly violent, including in and around Damascus.

Situated 80 km north of Amman, Al-Mafraq is already a poverty pocket of Jordan. The local community is struggling to cope with a sudden influx of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. This is severely straining local resources, leaving the municipality unable to meet the additional demands for basic goods and services.

With funding from the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM), and the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO), ICMC has provided humanitarian assistance, comprising rental assistance, the distribution of heaters and fuel and baby packages, to more than 950 vulnerable refugee households in Jordan like Leila’s.

In the little time she has left, Leila still needs to rebuild a future for her kids. At the time of writing Leila had not received any other forms of assistance to take the relay after ICMC’s rental subsidy ended.

Leila’s story is a stark reminder that the humanitarian community needs to continue to assist the hidden refugees struggling to survive in urban communities across Jordan, away from the international limelight focused on the refugee camps.

By Anna Hammarstedt in Jordan/lb
Anna is a 24 year old from Sweden, who has been interning with ICMC for the past two months

Photocredit © ICMC / February 2013