Nowhere People: The Refugees of Syria by Moises Saman
Nowhere People: The Refugees of Syria by Moises Saman
2 minute read
A Syrian boy waves from aboard a bus heading back to Syria from the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on September 1, 2012. Many families decided to return to Syria due to the bad living conditions in the Zaatari refugee camp. The camp was first opened in July 2012 to host the Syrians fleeing the violence that erupted in 2011 and 2012.Moises Saman—Magnum
Another war, another refugee crisis. This reoccurring dynamic has become all too familiar to me after years of working in areas of conflict. Standing in the middle of Zaatari, the sprawling refugee camp for Syrians in Jordan, I could squint and be transported back in time to similar scenes I’ve witnessed in places like Albania, Haiti, Afghanistan and Congo. These awful places share a common scent — a mix of dust, sweat and brewed tea — that at times is accompanied by the unnerving sound that wind makes against flapping tents. The countless testimonies of massacres, executions, rape, ethnic cleansing, escape and survival merge into a single narrative — slightly different versions of the same horror movie.
I remember photographing the first wave of Syrian refugees in early 2012. Under the cover of a cold winter night, a young couple held tightly to their baby girl while balancing aboard a rickety boat that was smuggling them across the Orontes River, from Syria’s Idlib Province into the safety of Turkey. Since then, more than 1.5 million Syrians have fled their homeland, seeking shelter wherever they can find it: renting apartments in east Amman, sleeping in makeshift tent settlements in the Bekaa Valley, or confined to fenced-in tent-cities along the borders of Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq.
A spread in TIME International by Moises Saman.TIME
As the war drags on, some of these camps are taking on the shapes of more permanent settlements. Cement structures and pre-fab trailers are slowly replacing the more temporary cardboard and plastic tents, echoing the past transformation of the original Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon or Gaza. Refugees, too, become hardened with time, and their initial openness to share their experiences with a visiting stranger turn to silence, anger and frustration.
Moises Saman is a Cairo-based freelance photographer and an associate member of Magnum Photos.
Some of these photographs were taken between 2012 and 2013, most recently commissioned by Save the Children, the international child’s rights organization.
A Syrian boy waves from aboard a bus heading back to Syria from the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on September 1, 2012. Many families decided to return to Syria due to the bad living conditions in the Zaatari refugee camp. The camp was first opened in July 2012 to host the Syrians fleeing the violence that erupted in 2011 and 2012.Moises Saman—MagnumNine-year-old Hannen (right), sits on a swing inside her extended family's home in the Wadi Haddad district of East Amman, Jordan, an area where many Syrian refugees have rented apartments, on June 14, 2013. Haneen's family fled the besieged Syrian city of Homs two months prior. Her father and all the men in the family are currently in Syria fighting with the Free Syrian Army.Moises Saman—MagnumSyrian refugees, mostly women and children, at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan on August 30, 2012.Moises Saman—MagnumDust sweeps over the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan on September 1, 2012.Moises Saman—MagnumA Syrian boy inside the Al-Muhamra tent settlement in north Lebanon in June 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumSyrian refugees rest under a tree before crossing into Turkey near the Turkish town of Killis on July 22, 2012.Moises Saman—MagnumUnder the cover of night a network of Syrian smugglers transport a family fleeing the violence in Syria on a rowboat across the Orentes River, which marks a stretch of the border between northern Syria and southern Turkey in Hatay Province on March 2, 2012. Moises Saman—MagnumA woman walks through the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan on September 1, 2012. Moises Saman—MagnumThin mattresses and pillows used as beds inside a one-room apartment that houses an extended family of seven Syrian refugees in East Amman, Jordan in June 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumA Syrian boy stands behind a plastic tent cover at a refugee camp near the Turkish border village of Boynuyogun. Hatay Province, on March 4, 2012. The camp houses over 1800 Syrians that have fled the violence since the start of the conflict in March of 2011.Moises Saman—MagnumShaha (center), a Syrian refugee living in the Ballanet al-Hissa tent settlement in north Lebanon on June 7, 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumTents covered in plastic at a refugee camp near the Turkish border town of Boynuyogun on March 4, 2012.Moises Saman—MagnumAhmed, a Syrian refugee, lays in a hospital bed in the Turkish city of Antakya on March 2, 2012 after stepping on a mine as he hiked across the border from Syria into Turkey. Reports suggest that Syrian forces have been planting landmines along the porous Turkish border.Moises Saman—MagnumSyrian refugees inside a refugee camp near the Turkish border village of Boynuyogun on March 4, 2012.Moises Saman—MagnumA Syrian family in a school occupied by Syrian refugees in the village of Tekrit, north Lebanon in June 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumSix-year-old Mayar (center) with his brother and father inside their temporary home in the town of Bar-elias, Lebanon in June 2013. The family is originally from Qusair, Syria.Moises Saman—MagnumA young Syrian refugee stands behind barbed wire at a small lake next to a spring where refugees collect drinking water on the outskirts of the Al-Jarrah tent settlement in Bar-elias, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon in June 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumSyrian children inside the Arab Lwais tent settlement in Al Marj, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon in June 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumA Syrian family walk through a sandstorm inside the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan on August 31, 2012.Moises Saman—MagnumSyrian children inside their tent in the Al-Jarrah tent settlement in Al Marj, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon in June 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumEight-year-old Hussein (right) and his sister Firyal (left), both suffering from cerebral palsy, inside their family's one-room house in June 2013 in the Wadi Haddad district of East Amman, Jordan an area where a large number of Syrian refugees have settled.Moises Saman—MagnumSyrian refugees outside a tent settlement near the town of Bar-elias, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon in June 2013.Moises Saman—MagnumA man walks through a sandstorm on the edge of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan in June 2013.Moises Saman—Magnum
