One of the first things I learned about my host mom upon arriving in Jordan is that she and her family settled in Jordan as Iraqi refugees, in order to escape the Iran-Iraq war.

My extended host family is pro-Palestinian in almost every way possible, something that mirrors the beliefs of my language partner and her friends and family. This isn’t surprising, given that almost 50 percent of the Jordanian population is Palestinian in descent.

Jordan currently has the largest refugee population in the world with 2.9 million Palestinian, Syrian and Iraqi refugees living all over the country. When I drive downtown, I invariably pass Palestinian refugee camps that are almost hidden in the urban housing in the center of Amman.

Many of the refugees in Jordan are concentrated in these camps. To the north lies the Syrian refugee Zaatari camp, population almost 80,000, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. To the east, the Azraq camp with a population of almost 55,000.

The members of my program and I are strictly prohibited from visiting any refugee camp. One of the courses in our program was even denied a scheduled excursion to drive by a camp this semester, due to safety and security reasons.

Professors and local Jordanians have told me that many of the street children that I come across on a daily basis are Syrian in descent. Syrian refugees in Jordan make up 13.2 percent of Jordan’s population, according an article by The Jordan Times.

It never ceases to amaze me how Jordan has become such an escape in the storm of chaos that surrounds the country — so much so that it is accepting millions of its neighbor’s population.

However, the country is quickly showing signs of its inability to properly meet the needs of its citizens as well as the refugee population. The stretching of water, energy and human resources has called for the government to apply for more aid relief as well as sign deals such as the Power Deal with Israel.

The Syrian conflict shows no signs of ending soon, and with it comes the promise of more families fleeing from the destruction that many in the Jordanian population left behind in their previous countries years ago.

This rise in displacement numbers is recorded by UNHCR, which states that displaced levels of people have risen to an unprecedented 65.3 million. Of those people, 21.3 million are refugees.

While these number of people may seem overwhelming, more often then not, they are reflected as just that — numbers. It was striking to me how, upon seeing the crises firsthand, how truly all-encompassing it is.

And while the Syrian conflict has been reported almost as a phenomenon in western media, the wars and conflicts displacing hundreds of thousands of people a year in countries that aren’t of western interest are highly underrepresented.

It is important to understand the human rights violations that happen all over the world and the victims of those atrocities may live closer than you think. Living in a society that has so positively accepted refugees is much different than my experience in the U.S., and something I am grateful for experiencing.

The rhetoric I’ve heard from some people in the U.S., including our presidential candidates, clearly shows ignorance and a lack of compassion for those trying to survive the worst the world has to offer.

This is just a vignette of how refugees have impacted my life thus far while living in Amman. Jordan has always been known as a safe haven for refugees, and hasn’t stopped that reputation with the introduction of the refugee crisis.

Katelyn Faubel is a junior newspaper and online journalism and international relations dual major. Her column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email her at kmfaubel@syr.edu.

Published on October 17, 2016 at 9:58 pm