- Marwan, four, was found by UN workers near the border of Syria and Jordan after he was separated from his family
- The little boy, one of one million children forced to flee Syria since the conflict began, was reunited with his mother
- 130,000 killed and 2.5 million forced to flee the country in the ‘disgraceful humanitarian calamity’ of the Syrian civil war
A heartbreaking picture has emerged of a little boy wandering in the desert, separated from his family while fleeing war-torn Syria.
Marwan, four, was found by UN workers near the border of Jordan and Syria, lagging behind his relatives.
The boy was photographed carrying a plastic bag full of his possessions on Monday by Andrew Harper, Jordan’s representative to the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees.
Aid workers helped the boy cross the border into Jordan and a follow-up tweet from Mr Harper today let the world know that Marwan’s family had been found.
‘Just to let you know that Marwan was safely reunited [with] his mother soon after being carried across the Jordan border,’ he shared on Twitter, along with a second picture of the boy being carried by an aid worker.
It is unclear how long the boy was separated from his family. A reporter tweeted on Monday evening that a UNHCR official said Marwan was only 20 steps behind his family after he became lost during the confusion of the crossing.
Nonetheless, the picture of the isolated boy has struck a chord, perhaps because it serves as a reminder of the many young children who have lost or become separated from their families due to the conflict.
The picture of Marwan was one in a series of pictures posted by Mr Harper in the last few months, as the aid worker documents the ‘endless tide’ of refugees fleeing Syria into Jordan.
This week, Mr Harper has also published photos of Malala Yousafzai, the young education activist shot by Taliban gunmen while on a school bus in 2012, who has been at the Jordanian refugee camp, meeting with refugees and helping them to cross the border.
Last year, Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees called the conflict in Syria ‘a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history’.
The Syrian civil war started with popular protests across the country in 2011 during the Arab Spring, which turned into an armed conflict after the Syrian army fired on demonstrators across the country.
Different areas of the country are under government or opposition control and skirmishes take place across the country.
More than 130,000 people have been killed since the conflict began and 2.5 million people, including an estimated one million children, have been forced to flee the country. An additional 5 million people are internally displaced in Syria.
Most of these refugees have fled to camps in the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey.
Jordan, to the south of Syria, has taken in more refugees than any other country, with 613,104 refugees residing there at time of writing, according to UNHCR reports.
More than 160,000 refugees currently live in the Zataari refugee camp, just south of the Jordanian border with Syria. It is now Jordan’s fifth largest city.
The refugees have set up 3,000 shops and restaurants in the camp, as well as a taxi service, schools, soccer fields and hospitals.
In a demonstration of the refugees’ resilience, the camp even has wedding dress boutiques, which rent out wedding dresses, and provides facials and hairdressing services to Syrian brides.
Refugee arrivals into the Zataari camp peaked between January and April 2013, with 4,000 refugees arriving in one day.
The rate of arrivals, which slowed in the second half of the year, picked up again in December 2013, with approximately 5,000 refugees entering the camp in the last week of the year, according to a report published jointly by the WFP, UNICEF and UNHCR.
Earlier this month a ceasefire was ordered, meaning that civilians in the Syrian city of Homs, which is currently held by opposition troops, could be evacuated.
Several thousand people were evacuated during the period of truce, which was mediated by the UN. Humanitarian aid was also permitted to enter the city.
The United Nations halted the evacuation early after reports that dozens of men aged 15 to 55 who attempted to leave Homs during the evacuation had been detained by Syrian authorities. The UN said it would halt the ceasefire until they knew the fate of the men, reported CBS news.
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