Yasmin sits in the paediatric ward of the Red Cross Red Crescent hospital in Azraq refugee camp, holding her two-month-old twin boys as they cough and wheeze. She appears calm and composed as she rubs the back of first Nadim and then Mohammed Nur. Both boys have developed an infection in the airways that lead to their lungs. The twins were born in Jordan days after Yasmin, 28, crossed the border as a refugee with her husband and two children.
Her story is one of loss and hardship, one all too common among refugee families living in Azraq camp. Yasmin lost two young daughters to the violence, which continues today in her hometown of Dara’a, and witnessed countless atrocities.
“Life was very difficult in Dara’a, but we still tried to stay,” she says. “We heard gunshots and bombs, and there was no water or electricity, but it isn’t easy to leave your home.” That changed when a bomb destroyed her family’s home, which sat in the middle of a civilian residential area. When the bomb fell, she was preparing food in the kitchen while two of her four daughters played in the living room. “We were ok on my side of the house,” she adds. “My girls died. They were just babies, one and four, and they died because they were in the wrong room.”
After crossing into Jordan heavily pregnant with her twins, Yasmin was relieved to see the Red Cross Red Crescent hospital in Azraq refugee camp, where her family relocated after Nadim and Mohammed Nur were born. Her family had received life-saving food, clean water and winter clothing from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the three years of conflict in Dara’a.
“I knew when I saw the Red Crescent flag that there were people here to help us,” she says. “Our lives will never be the same – we have lost too much – but it is nice to see a familiar helping hand when everything else is gone.”
The twins Nadim and Mohammed Nur are two among many paediatric patients who have been treated at the Azraq hospital. On average, the hospital helps Syrian refugee women from the camp to deliver one newborn each day, and since the hospital opened, nearly a quarter of its 560 inpatients have been children younger than five.
The Azraq hospital for Syrian refugees is supported by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), and by the governments of Canada and Italy. It is operated by staff from the Canadian, Finnish, German and Norwegian Red Cross societies, along with Jordanian medical, technical and support staff.
For more information about Red Cross Red Crescent efforts in the region, see http://www.redcross.ca/where-we-work/worldwide/middle-east-and-north-africa
Her story is one of loss and hardship, one all too common among refugee families living in Azraq camp. Yasmin lost two young daughters to the violence, which continues today in her hometown of Dara’a, and witnessed countless atrocities.
“Life was very difficult in Dara’a, but we still tried to stay,” she says. “We heard gunshots and bombs, and there was no water or electricity, but it isn’t easy to leave your home.” That changed when a bomb destroyed her family’s home, which sat in the middle of a civilian residential area. When the bomb fell, she was preparing food in the kitchen while two of her four daughters played in the living room. “We were ok on my side of the house,” she adds. “My girls died. They were just babies, one and four, and they died because they were in the wrong room.”
After crossing into Jordan heavily pregnant with her twins, Yasmin was relieved to see the Red Cross Red Crescent hospital in Azraq refugee camp, where her family relocated after Nadim and Mohammed Nur were born. Her family had received life-saving food, clean water and winter clothing from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the three years of conflict in Dara’a.
Jordanian nurse Neem holds Mohammed Nur (left) and Nadim (right). The two-month-old identical twins are being treated for a lung infection in the Red Cross Red Crescent hospital for Syrian refugees in Azraq refugee camp, Jordan. Two of their sisters were killed weeks before they were born, in a bombing in Dara’a, Syria. Photo credit: Gwen Eamer, Canadian Red Cross / IFRC
“I knew when I saw the Red Crescent flag that there were people here to help us,” she says. “Our lives will never be the same – we have lost too much – but it is nice to see a familiar helping hand when everything else is gone.”
The twins Nadim and Mohammed Nur are two among many paediatric patients who have been treated at the Azraq hospital. On average, the hospital helps Syrian refugee women from the camp to deliver one newborn each day, and since the hospital opened, nearly a quarter of its 560 inpatients have been children younger than five.
The Azraq hospital for Syrian refugees is supported by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), and by the governments of Canada and Italy. It is operated by staff from the Canadian, Finnish, German and Norwegian Red Cross societies, along with Jordanian medical, technical and support staff.
For more information about Red Cross Red Crescent efforts in the region, see http://www.redcross.ca/where-we-work/worldwide/middle-east-and-north-africa
