REYHANLI REFUGEE CAMP, Turkey – Fleeing the violence in their home country, nearly 25,000 Syrians have sought shelter in Turkey, flocking to eight refugee camps spread along the border with Syria. This is what one of those camps looks like.
It's been just over a year now since the uprising began against the regime of Bashar al-Asad in Syria. The violence has escalated steadily, and in the last few months has engulfed the northern province of Idlib, just over Syria's border with Turkey. As towns like Idlib, Sarmin, Saraqeb, and Taftanaz burn, thousands of refugees have fled over the border and been gathered in a string of refugee camps organized by the Turkish Red Crescent.
In early April, as the world waited for a cease-fire deadline organized by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, thousands more refugees crossed into
Turkey. The Turkish government has begun a campaign to consolidate them into more permanent camps for what is starting to seem like a long stay.
The Reyhanli camp sits in a bend in the road a few kilometers outside the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. A low agricultural area, rocky hillsides rise up around it, and the barbed wire barrier of the Syrian border runs like a thread into the distance. Day to day life in the camp is a slow grind. Men sit and drink tea. Folks visit and spread the latest word from inside their country. They watch the news on television and scour social media sites for information – and for uploaded pictures and video that make their way out of the country. New families arrive, and try to conjure the strange alchemy that makes a canvas tent into a home. The kids play with what they can find, and the women sit quietly in the shadows of their tents wondering how long it will be like this, and what will come next.
All photos: Victor J. Blue/Wired
