Syria Crisis: Inside A Refugee Camp
Updated: 11:28am UK, Wednesday 06 March 2013
By Sam Kiley, in Zaatari Camp, Jordan
They crossed in silence. A stream of humanity stumbling over pebbles in slippers and sandals. Artillery crunched into the earth in the homeland they had left.
"No lights, no lights," a Jordanian officer implored. "The regime forces (he meant the Syrian army) will see them and shoot at them."
Around 2,000 had crossed on foot before midnight that night into the desert kingdom just north of Ramtha.
They joined 300,000 other registered refugees here. People fleeing Syria into Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and on to North Africa and Europe now total, officially, a million. The truth is that the figure topped that some time back.
At least 400,000 refugees now live in Jordan, some 150,000 in the Zatari refugee Camp - the rest have been absorbed into Jordanian society.
"This puts, massive strains on us. We are short of water in this country. We are shoot of food and ave many who are already living below the poverty lone and now we have increased our population by about eight per cent.
"That means we are risking political instability - tension will rise. Competition for scarce resources can only lead in one direction," said a senior officer in Jordan's security forces.
"Contagion" is an ugly word to use in relation to human beings. But the effects of Syria's civil war are spreading into the region like a virus.
The disease is instability. It can be carried by refugees, unwilling hosts carrying the turmoil that cased them to flee their homes into neighbouring countries.
In Zatari the leader of an aid organisation said: "It's hard not to feel resentment when the Syrian problem is draining our own social funds. Our poor are worse off than the refugees."
Jordan estimates that it has spent in the region of $400m (£264m) already on humanitarian efforts. But the end of this year it expects to be hosting 600,000 people - and will need another $400 million or more.
Jordan, so far, has been spared the open conflict which has spilled from Syria into the Lebanon, which has been riven with sectarian strife.
Alawites, many of whom support President Assad, and Sunnis, often rebel supporters, have clashed in the north. Sunni and Shi'a in the south.
Border villages have been turned into bases for Sunni rebels in the north crossing into Syria. A little to the south near the Bekaa valley they are jumping off points for Hezbollah fighters joining Mr Assad's fight against the rebels.
On the Golan Heights, in Israeli occupied Syrian territory, the army of the Jewish State has boosted its defences and watches the daily skirmishes inside Syria from a few hundred yards away.
To the west, on the border with the Lebanon, Israel has installed batteries of Iron Dome and Patriot anti-missile missiles to defend against attacks from Hezbollah.
Israeli forces have already risked provoking Hezbollah with at least two sorties against Hezbollah targets, or Syrian weapon convoys supplying Hezbollah with anti-aircraft missiles.
The south Lebanese Shia movement is backed by Iran and President Assad. It knows it needs a strategic weapon to ensure its military longevity if its source of re-supply in Syria is cut off.
It has been trying to get hold of modern anti-aircraft missiles which could threaten Israeli air supremacy.
It might also like to get its hands on Syria's deadly stockpiles of VX and Sarin nerve agents which it has 'weaponised' and is capable of fitting to missiles and artillery shells.
Israel has made it clear that an attempt to give Hezbollah chemical weapons would be met with force. It would go to war to prevent its enemy getting hold of such a dangerous weapon.
Syria has indeed become contagious. The international focus is now on how to contain such a virulent outbreak of chaos, violence and grief.
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