Zaatari: giving birth in a refugee camp

French midwife Sylvie Deleval tells us about the 3-week mission she recently undertook at the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan for Gynécologie Sans Frontières. Founded in 1995 by gynecologists and midwives, this organization aims to restore women’s dignity and improve their status in society by focusing on new practices of public health across the world.

To date, Jordan has welcomed into its territory more than 510,000 refugees from the civil war in Syria. Refugees are closely monitored, with no freedom of movement, once they have been registered into one of the camps.  The Zaatari camp opened on July 29, 2012: by July 2013, one year after its opening, the camp held between 115,000 and 150,000 refugees, making it the fifth-largest population center in Jordan. Its inhabitants are mostly women and children. 

Within the French military camp and its rural hospital in Zaatari, Gynécologie Sans Frontières works to provide late-pregnancy consultations and to help ensure safer and less traumatic deliveries. My team was made up of eight people, each of us working in 24-hour shifts: two gynecologists, four midwives, a logistician, and a care-giver from the association Pompiers Solidaires. During the three weeks of our stay, we oversaw a hundred deliveries and gave hundreds of consultations.

A gynecologist from the Moroccan hospital located near the camp was able to practice Caesarian-sections when the sole operating room was available. A small Jordanian maternity ward in the camp functioned with only two hospital beds. During emergencies, the patients were transferred to the Al Mafraq hospital, located about 12 kilometers from the camp.

I was very moved by the women and girls (some of them as young as 14) for whom we cared. Most of our patients came from the area of Dara, close to the border between Jordan and Syria. Their level of education was rather low, they had married very young and had borne many children. It wasn’t rare to deliver a baby to a woman who already had 8, 9, or 10 children (if not more), and we also delivered babies to many underage young women.

These women showed a lot of courage and were full of gratitude. As for us, we tried to respect their traditions. Here, there were no men. Each woman arrived with another woman as her escort, usually the patient’s mother or mother-in-law, or her sister,  carrying a little plastic bag containing the strict minimum for the mother and the baby: often just a piece of cloth and some ribbon to swaddle the child, making the baby look like a little “mummy”! The women go through childbirth with all their clothes on, and it is sometimes hard to persuade them even to take off their headscarves, to put them a little more at ease. When a woman does take off her headscarf, she puts it back on as soon as she gets out of the delivery room.

The difficulties inherent in the rural and traditional way of life of these women are one thing. On top of this, they have to contend with the pains of war and exile, including widowhood, separation of families, poverty, and severely poor sanitation. Families usually arrive at the camp during the night, when they are recorded by the Jordanian authorities. Each is given a refugee number, printed on a card that will become the key to receiving material aid: tents, blankets, food, and access to any services provided by the UNHCR or NGOs. We were required to check those cards and note the numbers when we filled out birth certificates. Under these circumstances, some families make false declarations, claiming a status that will yield access to more material advantages and services.

Unfortunately, corruption is part of life at the camp. UNICEF would sometimes deliver packages intended to feed and help newborns. However, when carrying the packages, we noticed weight differences: we realized that during transportation, some of the packages were methodically looted, then closed back up.

The camp is watched over day and night by members of the Jordanian army and it is out of the question to exit without authorization. The refugees say they feel like prisoners. There is no water in the camp except what is brought in in trucks to replenish tanks at stations to which women and children go to fill their water containers. There isn’t a single blade of grass. The climate is very dry and the dust gets everywhere. Days are very hot, but it’s harshly cold at night.

During my short time in this militarized camp, I learned a lot, especially from the women, and from the team, with everyone cooperating under difficult conditions: few technical means, insufficient water, dust everywhere, and tough weather.

After completing my mission, I was free to come home to my own life in a peaceful country. But I find myself thinking a lot about the women and girl refugees, about the fact that they will probably stay in that camp for a long time—who knows how long? I hope that, after the war, their society will evolve enough so that these girls and women are finally treated with respect. I hope they can live their childhood and teenage years with access to education, healthcare, and the promise of a future of freedom.

© 2013, Women’s WorldWide Web