Even in a Refugee Camp, Kids Will (Try to) Be Kids
War takes its heaviest toll on the most vulnerable—and no one is more vulnerable than children. Syria’s brutal, kaleidoscopic conflict has taken the lives of thousands of kids and forced millions more from their homes. While refugees trying to escape to Europe have dominated the media’s attention in recent weeks, the vast majority of those displaced by the fighting are stranded in the Middle East. Some 2 million Syrian children are living as refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and other nearby countries.
The world’s biggest Syrian refugee camp, Zaatari, sits in the Jordanian desert just south of the Syrian border. The children of Zaatari—about 80 more are born every week—have endured all the horrors their elders have and suffer from the camp’s conditions as much as anyone. Still, as these pictures taken on a recent visit show, even in a place as grim as Zaatari, kids are kids.
This article was created in partnership with TakePart's parent company, Participant Media, in support of the film Beasts of No Nation, produced in part by Participant Media and distributed by Netflix.