The Syrian refugee crisis, the worst such displacement in generations, is far from over. Nearly five million people have crossed the borders into nearby countries. Left to the tender mercies of the local authorities and international relief efforts, they huddle in makeshift camps. The longer their ordeal continues, the worse their living conditions become as one country after another grows wary of the social and political consequences of their stay. According to UN sources, 4.7 million Syrian refugees now live in neighbouring countries, including two million in Turkey, 1.2 million in Lebanon and 630,000 in Jordan. But whether they are in Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon, the refugees tell a similar story. They are accommodated in tents or pre-fabs with inadequate water for washing and drinking, primitive sewage, and too few schools and hospitals. Except in Turkey, the refugees have no or little access to work, and they don't feel safe or welcome. One million children have dropped out of school as a result of the lack of schooling in the camps. Poor and vulnerable to disease, the refugees face discrimination, claim that they are mistreated by the security services, and say that the inhabitants of nearby villages and towns view them with suspicion. A main concern in the countries hosting the refugees is that the Syrians may end up staying for years, straining budgets and potentially upsetting the delicate balance among local ethnicities and factions. Accordingly, these countries are starting to treat the Syrian refugees more harshly, presumably to get them to move back home, or move them on to Europe, which is now bracing for an influx of starving and penniless refugees. Not only are the refugees prevented from working in most of the host countries, they are often denied refugee status and denied residence. Those who managed to get residence papers at the beginning of the crisis are now having trouble renewing their permits. Conditions in the camps are also kept to the minimum needed to sustain life. To understand such reactions, the fragility of the demographic composition of many of the host countries should be borne in mind. Often, these countries are home to a blend of ethnicities and groups that find it hard to coexist even at the best of times and may turn on each other if their livelihoods, land or status are perceived to be under threat. Citizenry is a precarious concept in most of the host nations, and all of them are continually trying to preserve a fragile balance of local interests. TURKEY: At the beginning of the refugee crisis, Turkey flung its doors wide open to the Syrian refugees, a decision that has cost its government $7 billion in funds so far. Turkey created camps for the refugees and provided them with housing, healthcare and education. It even allowed those who entered legally to work. Then the mood changed. Now the Turkish authorities are likely to act as if they want the camp inhabitants to return to Syria or flee onwards to Europe. This attitude has been dictated by Turkey's mistrust of the Syrian Kurds and by concern that there will be frictions between the mostly Sunni refugees and the sizeable Turkish Alawi community, which is largely sympathetic to the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Turkish officials are convinced that the semi-autonomous Kurdish state in northern Syria is a threat to Turkey's national security. Their fears are not unfounded, as Turkish Kurds, seeing the success of their secessionist brothers in Syria and Iraq, may want to join them in a Greater Kurdistan. Turkish authorities also fear that clashes may erupt between the two million refugees from Syria, who are mostly Sunni, and the half million Alawite Turks who feel affinity to the Syrian regime for sectarian reasons. LEBANON: Backed by Hizbullah and Iranian forces, the Lebanese army is said to be conducting searches and arresting Syrians in refugee camps in Lebanon. Some of those arrested have apparently been handed over to the Syrian authorities. Adding to the atmosphere of mistrust, some Lebanese politicians have accused Syrian refugees of involvement in terrorism. This was the justification given after the Lebanese army shelled the refugee camps. With the Lebanese media also taking a position of hostility toward the refugees, many of the Syrians now feel that they are being held in open-air prisons, unable to move freely or look for jobs. Lebanese authorities initially allowed relief organisations to create the camps, which are located in the most impoverished parts of Lebanon: the north and the Biqaa Valley. But as the influx continued, the numbers of Syrian refugees increased to the point where they now constitute nearly one-quarter of Lebanon's population. At present, the Lebanese are not only worried that the Syrians may take jobs away from them. They are also worried that their presence will stir up tensions between local Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon. The continuing involvement of Hizbullah in Syria is another cause for concern. The recent bombings in Beirut did not reflect well on the refugees, who are now facing increased suspicion, as potential terrorists may be hidden within the wider displaced Syrian community. As tensions persist among the various factions in Lebanon, the authorities have grown less welcoming towards the Syrian refugees, who are now viewed as a further element of instability in an already unstable country. JORDAN: According to the available reports, one family out of three in the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan have now pulled their children out from school so that they may be employed in odd jobs to help their parents. Nearly 13 per cent of all Syrian refugee children in the country are working instead of studying. Many families say they don't have enough food, as relief supplies have dwindled. Some complain they are being treated harshly by the police and are viewed with suspicion by the general population. When hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees first arrived in Jordan, the authorities allowed them to set up camp in remote desert areas where they lived in substandard conditions. The refugees pose no direct threat to Jordan's security, but their numbers have grown to the point where they now make up nearly 20 per cent of the population. A poor country, with limited resources to feed the additional population, Jordan is now strained beyond endurance. And it cannot help but think of the last time refugees came in such numbers: Palestinians who left their land in 1948 and then again in 1967 now constitute nearly 60 per cent of Jordan's population.
