Dzikrullah Pramudyaand Santi Soekanto DAMASCUS

ACHILD darted out of a labyrinth of alleys barely wide enough for most adults to navigate comfortably, heading straight toward a dusty main road pockmarked with holes being dug in one of the latest attempts to improve infrastructure in the Palestinian refugee camp of Khan Danoun, 23km south of Damascus, Syria. As soon as he was out in the open, the child hailed two other boys and they were soon engrossed in play.

Around the three were obvious signs of poverty and difficulties, including two black hoses extending out of most houses looking hopefully toward the next water supply tanks’ visit. ‘‘Water is the most urgent problem here,’’ said Abu Wa’il, a leader in a community where no formal community leadership structure exists. ‘‘We do not have a clean water source, so we have many diseases here as the existing health care is never sufficient.’
There are nine to 15,000 living in this camp, one of the poorest in Syria, a fraction of up to six million stateless Palestinians scattered in the Middle East countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and beyond. In Syria alone, between 250,000 and 500,000 Palestinians are sheltering in up to 25 refugee camps.

Some of the camps have been in existence since the 1948 Nakbah (‘‘Catastrophe’’) with the brutal establishment of the Zionist state of Israel which caused the massacre and expulsion of the Palestinians out of their homes and farmlands. Most of the refugees and their offspring in Khan Danoun came from Soffat, while Abu Wa’il came from a village in Ramallah.

Abu Wa’il spoke of spending six months walking and making temporary stops at various shelters from his village to Gaza. He and his family had to travel and found a living in many other countries, before Abu Wa’il finally decided to settle in Damascus in 2006. He was named mas’ul, aleader or person in charge, of the refugee camp where thereis no formal leadership.

Abu Wa’il was clear about his job: ‘‘My first task is to call people to Allah while my second task is to distribute aid and assistance from donors to the community here.’’ He said his appointment came together with the decision of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas to open a representative office in all of the Palestinian refugee camps. In comparison, Fatah has but one representative office in the corner of a busy market at the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut, Lebanon. In Khan Danoun, the main concern is indeed food and water. The feeling of urgency never stops as most of the refugees were driven out of their Palestinian villages and farmlands with only the clothes on their back.

‘‘The Israelis killed so many Palestiniansand that frightened others into escaping,’’ Abu Wa’il said. ‘‘The refugees came here without anything at all.’’ Almost sixty years have passed since they were driven out of their country but life has not been easier for most of the refugees. ‘‘Everybody feels unsettled all the time.

You are always a refugee,’’ he said. Even after having lived there for 60 years, the population of Khan Danoun continues to have to battle the poverty created by a vicious circle — there is not enough education in the camp which only has two schools, so many children stop schooling right after primary school, which causes poor employability and a high unemployment rate.

’’The most pressing problem, however, is water. Everybody has to buy potable water trucked into the camp but not everybody can afford to buy it, and so many people have to use contaminated water which of course leads to diseases,’’ Abu Wa’il said. ‘‘There are now two sources of clean water, big tankers that sell water for cleaning household items, and other tankers that sell potable water.

One gallon costs a family 10 Syrian liras ($0.30) and yet not everybody can afford this.’’ An elderly woman sitting in front of a dusty clothing shop agreed. ‘‘My family has to spend 75 Syrian liras for enough water, but very often we do not make even that amount from our shop.’’ Locals said there used to be a river and garden nearby when they first set up camp there in 1948 but they lasted only several years before the river dried up and the garden died. Now, a group of engineers have recently studied the possibility of making a well in the camp and found that they would have to dig deeper than 500 metres in order to find water, an exercise that will cost the camp US$70,000 ($95,000).

In various degrees, hardship is found in all Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. In Yarmuk, the largest camp in Damascus, a widow in her late 40s is struggling daily to care for her four children which include a paraplegic eight-year-old. A man in his late 40s is struggling following the amputation of his left leg. On whatever meagre income eked out of a menial job, another Palestinian refugee has to feed sons, daughters, nieces and nephews as well as a crippled grandfather of 91 because they have nowhere else to go to.