Not gone, but forgotten? Syrian refugees struggle to move forward.
Gone are the Hollywood A-listers who once walked this refugee camp’s dusty streets as regularly as down-the-street neighbors.
The gleaming white trailers that once adorned glossy pamphlets highlighting NGO success stories in the Zaatari camp are weather-beaten, gray, cracked, and leaking.
The colorful murals of Damascene courtyards painted on their sides, meant to console or inspire their inhabitants, have faded in the desert sun.
Even the constant stream of high-profile journalists and Western leaders – who used this barren border location as a backdrop for news reports and carefully curated media tours to discuss the Syrian conflict a few miles away – has dried up.
An outpouring of international generosity and compassion prompted by the horrors of Syria’s civil war created this refuge, providing its residents – for a time – with security, stability, dignity, and hope after the trauma of fleeing their homes.
Yet what remains here 10 years later are more than 80,000 Syrian men,
