ABSTRACT
According to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), Neirab Camp, situated about 13 km south of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo, “suffers from the most abysmal living conditions of all the Palestine refugees camps in Syria” (UNRWA 2007: 4). Originally composed of 94 zinc-covered barracks that were used to house allied troops during World War II, Neirab served as housing for some of the Palestinian refugees who ended up in Syria in 1948. Each zinc-covered barrack was divided into ten housing units initially separated by sheets (UNRWA 2003). The barracks were “draughty and squalid to the extreme” and newly arrived refugees were exposed to freezing winters and insect and rodent infestations (Azzam 2005; UNRWA 2003, 2007: 7). Over time, some refugees moved out of the barracks and built houses around them, within the area allocated by the Syrian government for the establishment of Neirab Camp, but the barracks remained and refugees continued to live in them.
