LEFT WALL

Photo 1. Rubble

This picture was taken on 4 May 2020 during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan in the town of Ariha in the southern countryside of the Idlib province. It shows the members of the displaced Syrian family of Tareq Abu Ziad breaking their fast together for the sunset ‘iftar’ meal in their destroyed home. They returned to the town for one day after fleeing during the previous military assault by Syrian government forces and their allies. 

By December 2014, 1,3 million houses – or one-third of all residential sites – were destroyed in Syria. The damage generated millions of tons of rubble, which could contain a variety of hazardous materials such as asbestos, cement, heavy metals, domestic chemicals and combustion products. All of these may be present in the ground and could have a detrimental effect on the environment, water resources and public health if not properly managed. (Photo by Aaref WATAD / AFP, May 2020)

Photo 2. A child collecting scrap 

A child collects scrap for selling from the rubble of destroyed houses in the city of Raqqa after the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) took control of the city. The destruction was caused by bombing from the US coalition aircrafts in Raqqa and battles with ISIS. The battle damaged almost every building in the city. (Photo by Aboud Hamam, 2018)

Photo 3. Broken water plant

The war has severely damaged the water and sanitation network throughout the country. Only half of the systems work properly and produce only 60% of their pre-war capacity. Access to safe drinking water is a challenge for millions. In the picture, men inspect damage at Raqqa’s water plant. According to locals, Syrian government forces targeted the plant with an air raid and consequently cut off the water supply for all residents in August 2014. Raqqa was a major stronghold of the Islamic State. People suffered the consequences. (Photo by Aboud Hamam / Reuters, 2014)

Photo 4. Children drinking from a water tank

A child drinks from the tap of a cistern as others queue behind him at a flooded camp for displaced Syrians near the village of Killi in the north of the northwestern Idlib province. In recent years especially in northern Syria, water shortages have become more severe and affect internally displaced people in particular. The lack of clean water in some Syrian refugee camps led to a significant increase in severe diarrhea, skin symptoms, and other diseases. (Photo by Aaref Watad Lehtikuva / AFP, February 2020)

Photo 5. Scrap gathering

Displaced Syrian women and children gather around a garbage truck at a landfill outside a camp in Kafr Lusin, in the Idlib province in northwestern Syria. Around 50% of the three million people living in the Idlib area, at that time jihadist-ruled bastion, are displaced people from other parts of the war-torn country. The absence of proper waste management resulted in expanding waste dumps that risk polluting the groundwater. (Photo by Aaref Watad, January 2019)

RIGHT WALL

Photo 1. Child and old ammunition
A Syrian child poses on top of a stack of neutralized shells at a metal scrapyard on the outskirts of Maaret Misrin town in the northwestern Idlib province in March 2021. A Syrian family that was displaced from the village of Latamneh in Hama’s northern countryside four years ago has found a source of income by collecting and selling scrap metal, including unexploded ordnance shells and spent ammunition casings. This is a business the whole family participates in. (Photo Aaref Watad / AFP, 2021)

Toxic Remnants of War (TRW) means broadly ‘any toxic or radiological substance resulting from military activities that forms a hazard to humans and ecosystems’. Sources of TRW include explosives, propellants, obscurants (such as white phosphorus) and metals (such as depleted uranium) used in munitions. But TRW can also result from, for example, attacks on industrial infrastructure. TRWs present many risks to civilians, both during and after conflict.

Photo 2. A family under an olive tree
A Syrian family sitting under the shade of an olive tree. Displaced Syrians gather in a field near a camp for displaced people in the village of Atme, in the jihadist-held northern Idlib province on 8 May 2019. Dozens of families spent the night on thin mattresses or blankets laid out over rugs on the red earth. (Photo by Aaref Watad, 2019)

The migration of the population to new areas is putting pressure on land use. It is sometimes necessary to use land reserved for agricultural use, other construction, water supply or even nature conservation, when no other plot of land is available.

Photo 3. Loss of trees

As much as 20% of Syria’s forests were lost between 2012 and 2019. The main reasons for this are forest fires and illegal logging. Fires are both intentional, for charcoal production and land clearance, and accidental. Accidental fires often arise from additional population pressure and under-resourced fire services. Deforestation is at its worst in the northwestern coastal areas of the country, where the population has exploded with internal refugees. Also, olive trees, that used to be important for the Syrian economy, were destroyed in massive numbers – since 2018, up to half a million olive trees have been destroyed. (Photo by Aaref Watad)

Photo 4. Broken oil container 

Damage at an oil refinery that was targeted by what activists said were US led air strikes at al-Khaboura village, in the Raqqa governorate in October 2014. A large part of the state oil refineries and oil infrastructure in Syria have been destroyed in strikes by different parties. This has led to local oil pollution and an increase in unofficial and semi-professional oil refineries, which can also be highly polluting. (Photo by Aboud Hamam, Reuters, 2014)

Photo 5. A man in front of an oil refinery

An oil worker poses at semi-professional oil refinery near Al Qataniyah, north east Syria, while in the background oil waste burns, spitting out huge flames and black clouds of smoke. (Photo Wim Zwijnenburg, 2018)

Photo 6: Arab

Arab from Aleppo is one of the participants in the Art Camping workshops run by Issa Touma. The theme of this workshop was to paint peace messages around the city in all the languages spoken in Syria. (Photo by Issa Touma)

Photo 7. A man in his wrecked home

Retired Professor Walid Hanjro has lived in the basement of his bombed house since 2016. He has only been able to repair his kitchen and one room. (Photograph by Issa Touma)

Photo 8. Football field 

A football field next to Saint Vartan Church in Damascus between the ruins in the summer of 2019. The area suffered badly in the fighting of 2012–2015. (Photograph by Issa Touma)

EXAMPLE CASE 1: 

Small solutions to a big problem 

In the Lebanese mountains, northeast of Beirut, the municipality of Rouisset El Ballout grew by about 10% with the arrival of refugees. A waste sorting center was built in the municipality in 2016, the first and only in the region, to serve 5,500 residents from three villages, Rwaiset El Balout, Hlaliye and Mzera (Photo 2 Figure 2. Waste sorting center in the middle of a pine forest).

“In the past, waste from our municipality, like other municipalities here, ended up in the environment and polluted the soil as well as surface and groundwater”, says Fadi Zeidan, Mayor of Rouisset El Ballout.

The initiative for the project came from the municipality, which designed and built the facility with the support of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). The municipality also independently manages the facility. Waste is regularly collected by the municipality and sorted for disposal and recycling at the facility. Plastics and cans are compressed and sold to suitable retailers (Photo 3. Waste in package). Bio-waste is composted in a composting line.

The project has been a successful pilot, modelled by other municipalities. The project led to a major change in the area, in both the thinking and practices regarding waste. The village received instruction and guidance on recycling. Visitors from schools and universities from all over Lebanon have come to observe and study the facility and its activities. It has been a great example of a project that has resulted in significant local change with a relatively small financial contribution. As the Lebanese government is unable to solve the solid waste problems, the surrounding municipalities are looking for similar projects.

In addition to the physical facility, briefings on sorting were organized and the community was mobilized in various ways. A group of young men and women were trained to give door-to-door information on sorting and in addition, sorting bins were distributed for organic, recyclable and other wastes.

In this project, the municipality also hires refugees to work and provide them with a livelihood. The municipality will benefit in the long run, as the facility will hopefully remain here even after the Syrian crisis. Syrians Saleh (red scarf) and Mostafa (light scarf) have been given full-time jobs at the center. They arrived in Lebanon as refugees from Raqqa, Syria in 2013.

Photo 1. Syrians at work in a waste sorting facility

The UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations are targeting such projects, where the initiative and need comes from the local municipality. In this case, the cooperation went smoothly and the results of the project are sustainable.

 UNHCR water and energy expert Renata Raad notes that the problem in Lebanon is not a lack of technical skill – it is about money and the lack of administrative skills.

“I firmly believe that the solution would be to strengthen the capacity and know-how of our own administration. Help has been received, but if we do not receive more support from the international community, our country will break under this burden”, Raad says.

The more Lebanese communities get support, the better the whole community will endure. Social cohesion and peaceful coexistence are very important for the long-term well-being of refugees and locals. The crisis has been going on for so long and a large number of refugees will never be able to return to their home areas.

The Lebanese state has calculated that by 2017, more than $18 billion was spent on repairing the effects of the crisis.

(Photos: Vanessa Riki)

EXAMPLE CASE 2 (Photos 5-7): 

The innovative project saved the water intake of the polluted village of Marjayou in southern Lebanon

There are also success stories. The only well and groundwater source in the village of Marjayou in southern Lebanon was polluted by wastewater from Marj Al Khokh refugee camp, home of 800 people. The situation was saved by the construction of a temporary water and wastewater network and six small wastewater treatment plants in the camp. The project was designed and implemented by the Italian NGO CISP (International Committee for the Development of the People) and funded by UNICEF.

A middle-aged man living in a camp with his family, named Riyadh, describes the importance of access to clean water and toilets.

“Before the project started, we had a lot of problems, especially during the rainy season. Wastewater mixed with rainwater and formed bad-smelling ponds around the tents, attracting flies and other insects. Everything was muddy and the teachers complained that the kids were dirty when they went to school. It is better now that there are more hygienic and safer conditions, clean toilets and wastewater is treated”.

The camp’s wastewater treatment plants consist of two or four tanks of ten thousand liters, which act as sedimentation tanks. The wastewater is treated anaerobically and only the so-called black water from the toilets is treated. From the tanks, water is led to an absorption area filled with gravel, rocks and soil by an underground pipeline that evenly distributes the treated water into the area. Special trees are planted in the absorption area, consuming the remaining nutrients and most of the nitrate from the treated wastewater. Wastewater collected from the tents, from cleaning, kitchens, showers and hand washing, is discharged directly into the infiltration area, describes CIPS engineer Oussama Kassem (Photos 8 and 9).

Again, the mobilization of the local community and refugees was an integral part of the project. The goal was to train the community to maintain and operate the entire water, sanitation, and hygiene system independently. At the end of the project, the municipality will take care of the waste management responsibilities, but will not help with the wastewater treatment plants.

The responsibility team was given tools to repair the system if anything went wrong. One man does the technical part and a group of about seven women oversee that the system works well.

One of the women chosen is 26-year-old Manal, originally from Idlib, Syria. She and her family have been in Lebanon for six years. Manal says they fled the bombings and attacks and feared for their children. She believes that the living conditions of Marj Al Khokh are good and safe. Still, she wants to return to Syria one day (Photo 10, front right).

One of Manal’s tasks is to check that the neighborhood is clean. She advises on cleaning up the environment and educating the community that clogging the system is a problem for all people, not just themselves. They were taught to clean the parts and to only put water in the sewer system.

(Photos: Vanessa Riki)

EXAMPLE CASE 3 (Photos 8-15): 

The city of Ghazze drowning in waste 

Before the Syrian conflict, the small town of Ghazzeh in the Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border, only had 6,500 inhabitants. By November 2017, the population of the small town had more than quintupled: mayor Mohamad Hussein Al Majzoub estimated there were as many as 35,000 residents.

The rapid population growth has caused chaos in waste management, among other things.

“Before, 800 kilos of waste was generated per day, now 33,000 kilos, in our city. We cannot serve such a large number of people”, Al Majzoub says.

In addition to waste, water and electricity are also a concern. The sewer network is unable to receive wastewater generated by five times the number of people. Al Majzoub says the new sewer network should be many kilometers long to meet current needs. Now the wastewater ends up polluting the soil and groundwater. In the past, the electricity and water supply were enough to cover the needs of a small town. Now there is a shortage of both. To survive the situation, the city has had to resort to loan money. In addition, help has been received from a number of organizations.

“The situation used to be really dangerous for the residents. Thanks to projects launched by the UN organizations in the water and energy sectors, among others, the situation is fortunately a little better”.

Half of the Syrians who settled in Ghazze live in shack villages on the outskirts of the city. On their side, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has recently built a new landfill.

“Thanks to the new landfill, we can now collect the worst odors and liquids. We built a security system to help ensure that waste is transported to the landfill properly, and ran an extensive information campaign to allow residents to minimize the amount of waste they produce”, says Mahmud Taleb, UNDP project coordinator. However, the next problem awaits just around the corner. When the current landfill is filled, a new one must be established again. 

With regard to waste management and water, the lack of permanent sanitation and hygiene structures and systems in the refugee camps in Lebanon also poses challenges.

“Among other things, the state has banned the construction of solid waste and water supply infrastructure for camps. Underlying this is the fear that refugees would remain in the country permanently”, Taleb says.

The project is a good example of how big the impact of rapid population growth is. Without outside help, the city’s capacity is by no means sufficient to meet the situation.

Photo 8. woman with children in front of tent

Shamsa, 27, lives with her five children in the refugee settlement of Ghazeh. She says that the water is delivered twice a week to the camp and she considers that this is enough. Her biggest concern is how to survive again next winter. Her tent house has no floor, and in winter conditions it becomes unbearably cold. (Photo: Vanessa Riki)

Photo 9. A solar panel on an electric pole

UNDP has also been helping with energy issues and has built solar-powered street lights for Ghazeh’s city. 

Photos 10 .Camp next to the landfill

Half of Ghazeh’s Syrian refugees live in informal camps. One refugee camp is apparently located dangerously near a landfill. However, the situation of the residents is a bit better than before, as the old landfill has been covered and the new landfill has been constructed. The leachate is collected and the gases from the old landfill are passed through a filter. Waste incineration has also decreased. (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

Photo 11. Family in front of the cooking area

Photo 12. Boy on the fence of the refugee camp

Photo 13. New open landfill

Photo 14. A ditch full of plastic

Hygienic conditions in the camp are poor. There are not enough toilets. Waste is a big problem in the camp and the ditch around the camp that leads to the adjacent river is full of debris. (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

Photo 13. New open landfill

The new landfill is primed with a waterproof base and a leachate collection system.

(Photos: Vanessa Riki)

The Basmane district of Izmir city in Turkey became one of the centers of smuggling because it is close to the crossing point into Greece. People went there to look for ways to get across – and often to buy life jackets from a shop. Both smuggling and the vest trade involve not only hope, but exploitation and fraud, in some places all at the same time.

Those who wanted to get elsewhere in Europe went to the coastal towns of eastern Turkey to wait. Many slept on the streets waiting for the opportunity to cross the sea, or they stayed wherever they could.

One of those who spoke about Izmir was Yusuf Hamy from Syria. In 2018, he tried four times to get across the sea to Greece with his family. They had to buy their own life jackets for the smuggling trip from a shop in Basmane. Prices ranged from between 50 and 100 euros – Hamy paid 75 euros each for the purchase.

The family had just decided to try and cross the sea to Greece again, but then Yusuf broke his leg in an accident and they got stuck in Turkey again. When it became clear to Yusuf that the life jackets the family had bought were useless, he said with tears in his eyes that it didn’t even matter.

“I’m already dying here, so it’s exactly the same if I die in the water. From death to death, there is no difference. My train is already gone, but what matters most to me are my children and their future”.

PART 2 – THE SHORES OF LESBOS (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

The coast of the Greek island of Lesbos overlooks the Turkish coast. Approximately one million asylum seekers arrived in Europe via the Greek archipelago between 2015 and 2016. People were usually not allowed to take anything other than their papers on a smuggling trip. After they landed, vests, inflatables (rubber boats) and wet clothes were all left behind – they then continued their journey to refugee centers or, less and less, to the mainland. That meant that the beaches were full of vests and pieces of inflatables (rubber boats) during the busiest period.

PART 3 – CLEANING UP THE SHORES OF LESBOS  (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

Materials inside the life jackets on the shores of Lesbos were a problem. Smugglers and street vendors often sold sub-standard vests to people. Adult vests may have contained materials that, at worst, absorbed water and sank.

Inexpensive inflatable vests were sold to children, which were mainly intended as a learning aid for swimming. On the yellow children’s vests it is printed in English that they should only be used for learning to swim – they do not prevent drowning.

After a couple of years, when the number of arrivals had slowed down, the majority of the beaches were able to be cleaned up by locals and volunteers. By the end of 2017, about 20,000 cubic meters, 1,000 tons, of life jacket and inflatable boat waste had been collected. The cleaning up was slow manual work as many of the materials were stuck under the shore stones or in hard-to-reach places.

In the photos you can see the volunteers of the Lighthouse Relief international organisation scraping pieces of a rubber boat from the coast alongside other debris still found on the beach in 2018. At that point, the vests and boats accompanying the arriving asylum seekers had also begun to be collected immediately after landing.

Also involved in the clean-up was 23-year-old Nawwar (with a cap-hat), who fled Syria with his family in 2013. After several long stages, the whole family received residence permits from Sweden and after having lived in the country for three years, Nawwar decided he wanted to help in Greece. He came to volunteer on the island of Lesbos and participated in the cleaning up of the beaches – the same beaches where he had landed on his journey.

“It was weird to come back here, but in a positive way. I saved money for the trip all year long. I’m happy seeing people coming from the sea, over the other shore to here, because it’s probably safer here. But at the same time, I feel insecure because I know they will be sent to a place where there is not much hope for them. So the feeling is contradictory”, he said in 2018.

PART 5 – LIFE JACKET GRAVEYARD  (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

In the northern part of Lesvos there is the so-called life jacket cemetery. This ‘cemetery’ contained thousands and thousands of life jackets, boats, clothing and everything that people left behind on the shores of the island. The materials are difficult to utilize or recycle, and transporting this material from the island would be expensive. That’s why they’ve been cleaned up from the beaches – but only out of sight, in the middle of nowhere.

PART 6 – SAFE PASSAGE  (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

Materials collected from the shores are also used for recycling projects. Safe Passage, based in Mytilíni, the capital of Lesbos, manufactures recycled products from plastic and life jacket pieces for selling. They need about 200 life jackets a week for sewing materials. The workshop mainly employs asylum seekers and refugees.

Amir, an Afghan, arrived in Greece in 2016. After that, he earned his living at the Safe Passage workshop for several years, making remanufactured products from the same materials that brought him across the sea.

He himself in fact could not afford to buy a life jacket, only a place on an inflatable boat that was so full that he traveled with one of his legs hanging overboard for the whole journey.

“The materials remind me of our journey and what is happening here and around the world – the migration crisis”, he said in 2018.

Syrian Mohammed had also got a job at a Safe Passage workshop and was preparing life jackets and other materials for recycling. Pictured in his bed, Mohammed waited with his mother, Fatima, for a decision at a camp called Pikpa run by volunteers.

“I was sad every day in Moria refugee camp, my mother was crying all the time. The toilets were never cleaned, it was cold and there were constant fights. It’s completely different here, the people of the camp are like family”.

They arrived from over the sea in a wooden boat with 64 people. The journey of a few miles took six hours and Mohammed only remembers having to save his mother from the water. His mother had a life jacket, while he didn’t have one. Now Mohammed is also working with the materials that brought them across the sea.

“The hardest is when I see a small life jacket,” he says quietly.

PART 7 – NEW LIFE?  – RIGHT END OF THE WALL   (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

Bags made from life jackets and rubber boats are transported by air to customers, most often to Europe and the United States. All they need is a stamp on the package. Unlike the people who wore the vests while traveling to the island.

PHOTO 1:

“Moria no good, toilet no good, dush [shower] no good”, was probably the most commonly heard comment around the Moria refugee camp. Sanitation is often a problem in refugee camps but in the biggest island camp, it was notoriously bad. One long term professional that worked with sanitation said that when he arrived to work at the camp, the situation was worse than any he had ever seen. The place has even been called the worst refugee camp in the world. (Photo: Reza Adib) 

PHOTO 2:

For the environment, the squalid situation at the camps meant that local pollution and the risk that the sewage system, that was way below the capacity required, would overflow. For residents, it meant skin problems, diarrhea, living with bad smells and daily challenges in getting themselves washed. Doctors Without Borders reported that the conditions severely affected the health and wellbeing of the residents. Most of the issues of children that came to their clinic in Moria were related to the insufficient sanitation and cold conditions of living in tents and containers. The situation was not much better at other hotspots on the Greek islands. Many have suggested that the squalid conditions in the hotspots are intentional so they would act as a deterrent for people attempting to get to Europe. (Photo: Vanessa Riki)

PHOTO 3:

The Moria camp burned down in 2020. It was not the first fire. There had been multiple fires that were accidental or purposefully lit, some resulting in the deaths of residents. A lot of people cut down and burnt trees from the nearby areas for cooking and heating because they had no alternative. This of course not only created a fire risk, but also respiratory problems, and challenges to the local environment and olive trees that grow back extremely slowly. When the camp burned down, some 8000 people were transferred to a makeshift camp consisting of only tents to protect against the cold and rain of winter. (Photo: Reza Adib) 

PHOTO 4:

Naym, Rasil, Maiz, Dildar and Waqar lived in a squatted ex-office in Athens in 2018 with tens of others. The toilets were leaking and you could barely get through the door. In a rundown house, the conditions were still better than on the street, where many migrants and even people who already had refugee status could end up. Squatters for their part, wanted to give one practical solution to the housing issue, but also offer an alternative to the policy of putting people in camps and separating them from society. By using the existing infrastructure, not only could refugees be given at least slightly better conditions in which to live, but also the environment could be saved when sanitation, heating and other infrastructure were already in place.

“All of Greece’s 60,000 refugees could even fit in the city of Athens, which has 5 million inhabitants, without trouble. In a city where there are 4000 empty public buildings, people could be housed in very different ways and there would be no need for those horrible camps”, said the activist, Nasim L in 2018.

According to him, in 2016–2017 there were, at best, 18 squatted houses to host refugees, with around 2500 people living in them. Since then, many of the residents have been evicted or the houses have stopped operating. (Photo: Vanessa Riki)

PHOTO 5:

Volunteers in the lobby of Hotel City Plaza, perhaps the most well-known squatted house in Athens used to host refugees. During its years of operation, the hotel-turned-squat hosted over 2500 people, about 350 at a time, from over ten different countries. It was entirely run by volunteers. The hotel was squatted in during 2016, a month after the EU and Turkey made their deal on migration and the country tightened its immigration policies. As a consequence, tens of thousands of people who were trying to pass through the country got stuck in overcrowded camps, tents and streets. City Plaza was closed in 2019. (Photo: Vanessa Riki)

PHOTO 6:

Nasser, a Kurd who fled from Iraq, in his garden. One of Nasser and his wife’s children is autistic and they were lucky among the asylum seekers of Lesvos – they got away from the chaos of Moria and went to Pikpa, a solidarity camp intended for vulnerable people, run by volunteers on an old children’s camp site. They lived in a small wooden hut among trees.

“Moria was like Iraq, a war zone”, Nasser said. In Pikpa he said he was happy with the conditions, the children got to go to school and they had their own garden, where he grew herbs and cucumbers.

The camp operated for eight years and made efforts to make the conditions humane and also environmental, taking care of proper sanitation and recycling. In October 2020, the police evicted everyone and transferred the residents to other camps. Nasser and his family had already gotten a place on the mainland by then. (Photo: Vanessa Riki)

PHOTO 7:

Children playing football in Kara Tepe refugee camp on Lesbos. The camp was a place where they transferred more vulnerable refugees such as families. However, there were always more people in line than places – there were only a few hundred available. In contrast to the overcrowded Moria camp, Kara Tepe was a functional place – at least it had heated containers, enough clean water, toilets and waste management. However, in spring 2021 the Greek government decided to shut down Kara Tepe as well. After Moria burned down, they established another camp, also named Kara Tepe, where thousands of people in flooding tents reside next to the sea. (Photo: Vanessa Riki)

PHOTOS 8-10:

On mainland Greece the camps worked at least technically better than in the islands. Often people went to them after they were transferred from the island hotspots. In the pictures you can see the camps of Ritsona and Schisto on the mainland. When we visited them in 2018 people did not consider the conditions to be such a problem. The number of residents were reasonable and most people had places to wash themselves – there were enough of toilets, and even inva toilets and washing machines – and some residents even had small gardens to lighten up the greyness of container life.

On the mainland, the water and sanitation situation was radically better than on the islands, partly because building permanent structures was not avoided. They had built, for example, a reverse osmosis system for cleaning the water. However political decisions and the Coronavirus pandemic made the situation more difficult there as well. When the pandemic started to cause a deterioration in conditions, among other things, it caused demonstrations because people in isolation were sometimes left in conditions without water, toilets, or even food. This year, a three meter high wall was built around the camp of Ritsona and the residents’ movements have been surveilled more closely. (Photos: Vanessa Riki)

LEFT WALL (All photos by: Vanessa Riki)

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS STRESSED WITH THE GROWING WASTE PROBLEM

The increase in the number of refugees in Turkey is reflected in the increase in sewage, municipal, and hospital waste. The increase in illegal landfills poses a major risk to the environment and water resources. Increased visible littering in the living environment may also lead to anti-refugee sentiment. Especially for the local municipalities, the increased amount of waste means huge challenges for waste transportation, treatment and disposal.

Gaziantep, with 2,2 million inhabitants, has had 550,000 Syrian refugees relocate there within about five years (2013–2018) and at the same time, the amount of waste has tripled. In 2018, the amount of waste was 650,000 tons – 100,000 tons more than the previous year. Normal yearly growth would be about 30,000 tons, states Gaziantep Municipal Environmental Engineer Gökhan Yaman. He adds that this amount of waste was not expected until 2028 and the city has had to build new landfills much earlier than planned.

Yaman says they have spent 70 million Turkish lira (TL) to reduce the environmental impact, and to improve environmental services, waste transfer stations, wastewater and waste treatment facilities, and landfills.

“For waste management alone, we have spent 30 million TL in 2015–2018,” Yaman says.

With this money, they built two new landfills in 2018, which they originally planned to build by 2025. The sites were built using modern technology, a collection system and leachate treatment.

In the photos (Photos 1-4 LEFT SIDE) – Gaziantep’s old landfill from which the landfill gases are used for energy. About 16,000 homes get their electricity from here. The new landfill is ready for commissioning. The old landfill in Gaziantep was renovated with, among other things, gas collection. The landfill gases obtained from this are used for energy. About 16,000 homes receive electricity from this. The new landfill is ready for commissioning.

RIGHT SIDE (All photos by: Vanessa Riki)

Difficulties in finding an apartment and bad living conditions

In 2019, 98% of Syrian refugees living in Turkey lived in urban, peri-urban or rural areas, while only the remaining refugees lived in temporary accommodation centres (UNHCR 2019).

The cities of Kilis and Gaziantep are located near the Syrian border. There are 428,779 Syrian refugees living in Gaziantep city. According to the statistics, the population of Gaziantep was 799,558 in 2012 and 2023 this is projected to be 2,257,278. In the city of Kilis, 50% of the city’s inhabitants are refugees. These numbers might help us to understand the scale of the challenge.

In cities like Kilis and Gaziantep, the number of Syrian refugees has been a big challenge for municipalities. Urban refugees face great difficulties concerning their shelter needs as well as their health.

Photo 1. Family in the city of Kilis (top row left)

On the outskirts of Kilis, you will find a two-storey, unfinished building, in which the ground floor mainly resembles a storage space. A family of five who fled Aleppo, a mother, a father and three small children live there. The youngest is only four months old. The family’s father has got a job at a store, but the wife is home with the children. The money is not enough and they have had to borrow money. The mother can read, the father can’t. Neither of them can speak Turkish so it is very difficult to get help, apply for assistance, or know their own rights.

The living space is heated by a fireplace located next to the wall. There is a bitter smell in the air. The family cannot afford to buy coal, so rubbish and cardboard have been burned in the fireplace instead. Because of this, the father of the family has developed asthma. The family’s “kitchen” is built of plates, plastic baskets, a gas stove and a refrigerator. Plastic sheets act as partition walls. The only water point in the apartment is in the toilet.

“Life is tough”, the woman says. “If we can’t live a decent life here in Turkey, I hope we can move to Europe”.

Photo 2. Family in the city of Kilis (top row middle)

The former Syrian Free Army soldier also lives on the outskirts of Kilis. The man’s leg was injured in a chemical weapons attack on Homs. His leg has been operated on several times in both Syria and Turkey, but despite this it had to be amputated from the knee down. Now he is wearing a prosthesis. The man’s daughter’s legs were also injured in the chemical attack.

The man is a registered Syrian refugee, which guarantees him free health care and medication. However, he has had difficulty obtaining refugee status, which would give him greater financial support due to his inability to work. (Photo: Vanessa Riki)

Photo 3. Family in Gaziantep (top row left)

A family of five, the AbdAlslam, who fled the countryside of Aleppo, lives in the outskirts of Gaziantep. The home in the basement of the house, with two rooms, a kitchen and a toilet, is their fourth in a few years. The influx of Syrian refugees into Turkey has caused a shortage of housing. At the same time, housing rents have doubled. So it is difficult to find a good and affordable apartment.

The combined bedroom and living room has carpets on the floor. Mattresses next to the wall serve as sofas during the day and beds at night. The second room serves as a guest room. There is a swing for children in the hall of the apartment. The eldest boy is doing his homework, the girl has just been rocking for a while. The youngest son still spends a lot of time in his mother’s arms.

The entire Abdalslam family has experienced negative lung symptoms from the smoke from the coal fireplace, despite using the most expensive and best available coal. The little boy in the family also burned his hand on the side of the fireplace. The father plans to move into an electrically heated house as soon as they can afford it.

The father of the family worked in Syria as a lawyer and the mother as an Arabic teacher. Now the man works as a customer service representative in a clothing factory owned by a Syrian, and the wife is desperately looking for work. They live largely on Turkish state subsidies.

“In Syria, I would live like a king with the money we spend on the cost of living here in Turkey”, says the father of the family, Bashar Abdalslam.

Photo 4. Öncüpinar refugee camp in Kilis (middle row left)

The Oncüpinar camp in Kilis has five schools – preschool, elementary school and high school. There are so many students in these schools that they study in two shifts – girls go to school in the morning, boys in the afternoon. The primary school has two floors and the first floor is for pre-school children. In addition to the actual subjects, schoolchildren are taught important things for those living in camp conditions, such as hand washing and health and hygiene education. The camp also has its own center for disabled and autistic children. Among other things, reading, writing, singing and visual arts are taught.

Photo 5. Izmir Basmane (middle row middle)

Izmir in western Turkey used to be a “door to Europe” for many Syrian refugees. Izmir is one of the largest concentrations of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Basmanen’s infamous district is home to a large number of refugees and those smuggling refugees. Fake and poor quality life jackets continued to be sold in stores in 2019.

Many refugees living in Turkey are struggling to earn a living. There is not enough housing for everyone or they can’t afford it. In addition, housing prices have risen sharply in cities that have been affected by large numbers of Syrian refugees. The competition for habitable homes is fierce. Poor Syrians end up in neighborhoods and homes where Turkish people no longer want to live.

Many have to share an apartment with several families. Others live in unfinished buildings, shops, garages, basements, or self-made shelters. If a toilet has to be shared by many people, or is unavailable, or clean water is not available, it exposes them to many diseases such as diarrhea.

Photo 6. Öncüpinar refugee camp in Kilis (middle row right)

The Öncüpinar refugee camp in Kilis has been a model camp in Turkey in many respects. Everything at the camp looks very clean and well organized. In 2019, there was a total of 3,099 containers with an average of four people living in one container. At the time of the interview, there were 9,855 people living in the camp, 60% of whom were under 18 years old.

The containers have a living room, kitchen, shower and toilet, and come with running water and electricity. The new part of the camp has container houses on two floors. Freshly washed laundry hangs in front of almost every home. The roads in the camp area are paved. The alleys are lit by street lamps.

The last remaining camps in Turkey are container camps. Refugees in the camp are provided with monthly support from the state, containers with their own showers and toilets, and clean water to drink. Refugees also receive free health care and medicine. There are doctors and nurses in the camps.

Photo 8. Cardboard collectors in Izmirin (bottom row left)

Many Syrian refugees made their way to Izmir in western Turkey in the hope that they would be able to get to Greece by boat and then travel to other parts of Europe. A large proportion of Syrians still living in Izmir have tried at least once to get across the sea by boat to Greece. After the trips failed, they stayed in Izmir “for now” to think about and see what happens next.

In Izmir, about a third of Syrian refugees live there illegally, without official refugee status. Without language skills and especially without registration, it is almost impossible for them to get a decent job to support themselves. So the Syrian refugees do almost any job they can get their hands on. Refugees collecting and selling rubbish and cardboard on the streets of Izmir are a familiar sight. The two men in the picture said their names were “Mahmud” and “Ahmad,” but the names are probably made up.

Photo 7. Family in Istanbul (bottom row middle)

The family fled from Aleppo to Turkey and settled in the suburbs of Istanbul. The family’s son, Nasser, 21, came to Turkey alone when he was only 16 years old. His widowed mother Emira, 44, his two sisters and brother-in-law followed a couple of years later after their house in Aleppo was bombed to the ground.

Nasser first worked at a clothing factory where he slept next to a machine that made trouser buttons. He was paid 800 Turkish lira (€73) a month. In his current job, he earns 2,000 TL (€180) a month.

The budget of a family of six is tight, as Nasser is the sole breadwinner of the family, and they do not receive enough subsidies support from the Turkish state. The little boy, Abdul, 1,5 years old, is the son of Nasser’s sister and brother-in-law, Alin, 23. Alin is unable to work due to an injury in his lower back. The young couple were going to have another baby in a few months.

When the mother of the family, Emira, is asked what her dream is, she is moved to tears.

“I feel happy and respected because no one has asked me such a question in a long, long time.”

Emira then says she has no dream, but she has hope, “I hope the next generation will never experience the same fate as we do. Not to experience war, and not to experience what it is like to be treated badly because of one’s own religion”.

Photo 9. Bar entrepreneur in the suburbs of Istanbul (bottom row right)

Saleh AlSaleh, 35, who lives in the suburbs of Istanbul, is from the north of Aleppo. He came to Turkey from Libya, assisted by smugglers. Saleh initially worked in a shoe factory as he is a shoemaker by original profession. After gathering some savings, he also brought his family to Turkey. He has a wife and four children.

Saleh speaks Turkish and has also previously worked as an Arabic interpreter at a Turkish hospital, as well as a hotel. At the time the picture was taken, he had just set up a bar and the place had just opened. One of his sons is playing on a computer. The bar is located in an area rich in Syrians. Saleh says only 7,000 people lived in his old home village and 300 of them now live in the same area where his bar is located. Saleh is confident about his future.

“Keeping my own business means an uncertain income, but at least I’m the boss of myself. It’s much more comfortable than working for others, and I won’t be abused by anybody”.

LEFT WALL (Photos Vanessa Riki)

The immediate cost of the Syrian crisis to Jordan from 2011 to 2019 was about 11 billion US dollars, which covered the cost of education, health care, water, energy, sanitation and other services.

We can say with confidence that the refugees did not create the water shortage in Jordan, but the crisis has worsened the situation and it has exposed the shortcomings and poor management of Jordan’s water infrastructure.

Total water demand in the northern part of the country has grown by 40%. Water distribution has reduced from once a week to only once every four weeks in some places. It is estimated that water demand and wastewater production will almost double by 2045 if all Syrian refugees remain in Jordan.

The Jordanian government has a problem because the investment required to meet future demand is far too much. And the investment should be made immediately. If the current water supply practices remain virtually unchanged, many groundwater resources will soon disappear, and if it doesn’t dry out, the water will become either too saline or polluted.

Photo 1. Capital city of Amman

About 83% of Syrian refugees in Jordan live in cities and of these, 28% in the capital Amman. 17% of refugees live in three official camps: Zaatari, Azraq, Emirati Jordanian Camp. Both rapid population growth in cities and the COVID-19 crisis have increased water consumption. Adapting to the refugee crisis in Jordan has been particularly acute in the cities, as it has also been in other countries.

Currently, more than 94% of the population in Jordan live in the areas that are connected to a water distribution network. However, water is often only available once a week in urban areas and less than once every two weeks in rural areas.

The severe droughts of recent years have exacerbated Jordan’s water shortages to the extent that the country’s renewable water resources can only cover about half of its needs. For example, according to the Jordanian Ministry of Water and Irrigation, the rainy season in 2020 only produced 60% of the average annual rainfall.

From 12 of Jordan’s groundwater areas, 10 are being pumped to deficit. Groundwater is pumped about twice as fast as it replenishes. The water deficit could rise to around 15 million cubic meters by this year (2021) and measures to save water will become even more important. Recent data shows that without any measures, by 2100, some households will not have even 40 liters per person per day. People on a low-income will suffer the most.

Photo 2. Food basket of Jordan

Jordan uses 45–60% of its water resources for agricultural purposes. Most of Jordan receives less than 50mm of rain per year. Food can only be grown in a few parts of the country – in the more mountainous areas as well as in the Jordan Valley.

The Jordan Valley is the most important agricultural area in the country and has traditionally used water from the Jordan River for irrigation. Both the amount of rainfall and the amount of water in the river have decreased significantly and threaten food production in the area. The flow of the Jordan River is now less than 10% of its historical average. This has led to enormous uncertainty for agriculture, individual farmers and national food security. The situation also means that traditional crops and cultivation practices need to be re-evaluated.

Photo 3. The dying Dead Sea

The Dead Sea with a salinity of 34% receives its water mainly from the shrinking Jordan River. The water level is falling by as much as a meter a year and the shoreline is retreating even more, eroding structures and making recreational use of the water body more difficult. The only hope for the Dead Sea, and for the whole country to secure the water source in the future, is the success of the ambitious RED-DEAD water project. Jordan, in cooperation with Israel, plans to pump desalinated water from the Red Sea across the country to the Dead Sea – this will also help meet part of the water demand for cities in both countries.

RIGHT WALL (Photos Vanessa Riki) 

Photo 1. Water truck at the Zataari refugee camp 

Tens of thousands of residents in the Zataari refugee camp have struggled to get enough water every day for years since the camp was set up in the wilderness near the Syrian border in 2012. Initially, all water in the Zaatari refugee camp was distributed by truck and residents had to fetch water from common water points and carry it to their homes. The water and sanitation systems for the camp were eventually completed in 2019. Up to about 35–60 liters of drinkable water per person is distributed daily to each home. UNICEF and the Jordanian Ministry of Water built the system in stages over seven years, with a total investment cost of 6 million US dollars.

The number of trucks supplying water dropped from about 65 to just eight a day, and all wastewater is now drained. The reduction of truck traffic significantly reduced the risk of traffic accidents in the camp. The photo shows a water tanker being refueled at the Zaatari camp in 2017.

Photo 2. Boy fetching water

In 2021, 38,063 Syrian refugees lived in the Azraq refugee camp near the Syrian border in northern Jordan.

In the photograph a young boy carries water carts from a public water distribution point at the Azraq camp in 2017. Children could carry up to 12 buckets of water a day and use it for up to an hour a day. Today, the Azraq camp also has a comprehensive water distribution system built and residents no longer have to carry water. This has freed residents from getting water, and children have more time to go to school and do their homework.

Photo 3. Camps have their own water intakes

Extra water intakes have had to be drilled to meet the needs of both the Zataari and Azraq camps. 

The Zaatari camp is located directly on one of Jordan’s most important groundwater bodies, which supplies water for about half a million people. Due to higher temperatures in June 2021, the water demand in Zaatar increased and the average daily demand was about 4,500 m3. The three internal wells in the Zataar camp cover about 3,300 m3 of water per day. The remainder has to be met by expensive external water transport. In order to protect the groundwater, the provision of proper sanitation became especially important for the camp.

The water demand in the Azraq camp is about 2400 m3 per day. With two internal groundwater intakes, this has so far been able to be met. The photograph shows a UNICEF water intake next to the Azraq camp in 2017.

Photo 4. Water all the way into homes

Currently, the improved dwellings in the Zataari and Azraq camps all have a kitchen and a private toilet connected to a sewer system. This has increased the safety of women and children in particular. The community in the camps is mobilized and they share information about hygiene and sanitation practices, and water conservation. In addition, equal water distribution is pursued and community members are trained in the use and maintenance of the network and repairs. In the photograph, a woman is washing dishes at her home in the Azraq Refugee Camp 2017.

Photo 5. The refugee camp that became a city

The Zataari camp is home to 80,000 Syrian refugees and is one of the largest refugee camps in the world. The photograph shows a view over the Zaatari refugee camp in 2017.

Photo 6. A refugee camp operating on a solar power plant

The Azraq Camp was the world’s first refugee camp powered by renewable solar energy. The Zataari camp has also had a solar panel power plant since 2017 to meet the camp’s energy needs. The photograph shows the solar power plant at the Azraq camp in 2017.

The 40,000 solar panel, solar power plant in the Zataar camp is the largest facility built for a refugee camp. It covers consumption for 14 hours a day and improves living conditions, safety, food storage and prolongs children’s ability to do homework. The power plant has made savings of about $5 million a year . Hospitals, community centers, and organization offices also benefit from the facility’s electricity. CO2 emissions are reduced by 13,000 tonnes per year. Also, all 2,300 street lights in the Zaatari camp have been replaced with low-energy LED lights. 

One housing unit in the camp consumes an average of about 2.7 to 3.5 kWh / day, depending on the season. For comparison, a single person in Finland living in a one room apartment consumes 4–7 kWh / day. 

Photo 7. Sewage inlet pumping station

Launched in June 2015 with a small pilot, the Zaatar wastewater network sought to resolve the sanitation crisis that threatened the camp as well as protect the groundwater source underneath the camp. More and more refugees were building private sanitary facilities and sewage was spilling into the streets and accumulating in ponds. In addition, people dug unofficial sewers and cesspits. This resulted in poor hygiene and health risks. The spread of disease, insects and rats soon became a problem.

As of 2019, almost all apartments had their own toilet and were connected to the water and sewage network. The wastewater system was built in stages and initially the wastewater was discharged into concrete septic tanks, from which the wastewater was taken by trucks to a wastewater treatment plant. In the second phase, the septic tanks were connected to a more comprehensive wastewater network, which takes the wastewater directly to the treatment plant. With a better wastewater system and increased hygiene, conditions have improved and groundwater is more protected from contamination. The completed network has reduced the operating costs of the water and sanitation system by two-thirds. In the photograph, a wastewater truck is bringing wastewater to the inlet pumping station at the Zataar camp wastewater treatment plant in 2017.

Photo 8. Wastewater treatment plant

Zataari is the world’s first and Azraq’s is the world’s second refugee camp to have a modern wastewater treatment system. Since the summer of 2014, the Zataari camp has had two mobile wastewater treatment system units in use – a biofilm reactor and a biofilter. The units were designed to treat the wastewater of 55,000 people. Following the expansion that was completed in May 2021, the wastewater treatment plant now has a total capacity of 3,600 m3 and will also serve the surrounding communities. The photograph shows the aeration tank of the Zataari wastewater treatment plant in 2017.

Photo 9. There is enough water for the environment

Zataari Camp is located right next to the town of Mafraq. The city has gradually learned to live and work with the camp. The region gets additional workforce and, for example, irrigation water from treated wastewater is used for agriculture outside the camp.