The Return: ‘A Room of My Own’ (Photos)

ZAATARI — Four‑year‑old Alaa Faouri sits on a rolled‑up mattress, nudging his only toy—a battered truck. He and his two cousins are about to leave their now bare caravan in Zaatari refugee camp, in northern Jordan. The children have never seen the orchards of Daraa, in southern Syria, where their parents were born. Zaatari’s gravel lanes are the only streets they know. 

The camp’s population, which peaked at over 156,000 refugees in mid-2013—making it briefly Jordan’s fourth-largest “city”—has seen a 20 percent decline since 2022. As more families return to Syria or relocate, shelters are slowly dismantled, and the camp grows quieter and more transient by the day. Hundreds register to return each week.

Alaa al-Faouri looks out the window of his family’s caravan in Zaatari refugee camp, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Pressing his forehead against the scratched plastic windowpane of his caravan, Alaa watches his neighbors as they unbolt roofs and stack plywood for the trip back to Syria. Born long after Zaatari sprang up on this patch of desert in 2012, he has never known life outside the camp’s five‑square‑kilometer grid of white caravans and dusty alleyways. 

Whole families are increasingly signing voluntary return forms: to date, 119,876 Syrian refugees have returned to Syria from Jordan, nearly 15 percent of them from Zaatari. Most of Alaa’s neighbors are headed for the southern Syrian province of Daraa, where rebuilding homes costs more than most refugees can earn. For the boy, it is the last glimpse of this familiar view—caravans, solar lamps and outward-bound pickup trucks—before he departs with his family.

The Faouri family prepares to leave Zaatari camp for Syria, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Outside, Ashraf Faouri, 32, asks Alaa, his son, to dismantle a battered wooden television unit, while the boy’s cousin stacks every usable object.

Zaatari’s caravan units, measuring between five and seven meters long and three meters wide, were installed in 2013 to replace tents meant for six months. The structures have now endured summers that top 40 degrees Celsius and winters that drop below freezing. Each contains roughly 1.2 tons of metal, timber and plastic, all of it priceless across the border in Syria. 

Camp records show more than 9,000 shelters have been dismantled since 2022, a steady drain that mirrors the outflow of residents. Ashraf will soon join an informal convoy of pickup trucks carrying solar panels, water tanks and broken bedframes north to Daraa, where rebuilding even a modest two‑room house depends upon scavenged materials. For families leaving Zaatari, every bolt and board is both a memory and a new start amid the ruins waiting on the other side.

An olive tree casts a thin shade over Ashraf Faouri’s battered blue‑gray couch, parked outside beside boxes, plastic sacks and loose boards, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Zaatari has witnessed one living room after another dismantled, loaded onto trucks and driven away. Departures are increasing: more than 600 family convoys left in June 2025, triple the monthly average a year earlier. 

Ashraf is hiring a van for the 19-mile trip to the Jaber border crossing, so he can take the sofa, water tank and roof panels in one trip. None of the family’s possessions is junk. In war‑damaged Daraa, a used couch brings respite from poverty and the possible destruction that awaits them. 

The nearby Emirati‑Jordanian Mrajeeb Al Fhood camp, which once hosted more than 4,000 Syrians, has closed. Its residents had to choose between returning to Syria or relocating to the harsher Azraq camp in northeastern Jordan, which still hosts close to 40,000 refugees.

Nour Faouri, 3, rests while her family packs to return to Syria, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Inside their 21‑square‑meter caravan, the Faouri family has packed 13 years of exile into a single mound of blankets, plastic crates and a lone floor fan. Three‑year‑old Nour lies on the one mattress yet to be rolled up, dozing while her parents finish sorting what stays and what goes.

Everything, even that with little value, travels with them. Whatever is left behind will be reassigned, but there are now fewer refugees to claim it. Each pile of possessions is a sign that another household is setting out for the uncertain road home. 

Ashraf Faouri, 32, rests while packing his family’s belongings to return from Zaatari camp to Daraa, southern Syria, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Ashraf crossed into Jordan as a teenager 13 years ago and met his wife in Zaatari, where their children were born. Deciding to leave is wrenching: once Jordan stamps “voluntary return” on a refugee card there is no coming back, a finality that weighs on Ashraf as he heads into the unknown. “When I leave, I’ll hand the caravan over,” he says, determined not to waste the shelter that saw them through sandstorms and winter floods.

Members of the Faouri family walk down a street in Zaatari refugee camp, northern Jordan, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Along Zaatari’s main sand track, Ashraf and his family visit their neighbors, who have shared water rations and companionship for more than a decade. These friends will be waiting for news from the homeland. Many will not decide whether to sign the one‑way “voluntary return” form until they hear how the first wave fares.

“I don’t own a house in Syria, so I’ll stay with my parents in their damaged home,” Ashraf says. “Once I’m settled and able, I plan to rent a room of my own.”

A car stacked to the limit with foam cushions, boxes, bags and bundles of salvaged carpets, everything the Faouri family can squeeze in for the short ride to the Jaber crossing, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Nearly 1,000 camp residents took convoy transport in May 2025, among the 114,000 Syrians who have left Jordan since President Assad’s fall in December 2024. Yet the flow has become uncertain again: renewed shelling and violence in southern Syria and bomb blasts by Israel in Damascus in mid-July have stirred fresh doubts about safety, as well as the prospects of jobs across the border. For those still willing to try, every mattress and plank lashed to a truck is both household inventory and a bit of a guarantee against whatever awaits on the other side.

A street in Zaatari refugee camp, northern Jordan, 7/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

With scant shade, rationed water and midday heat that scorches the ground, Zaatari now feels more like the surrounding desert than the bustling camp it once was. It has sheltered thousands fleeing some of Syria’s worst violence, yet beyond this, it offers little hope, or future. 

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen my parents, and they need help,” Ashraf says. “I think it’s time to return home.”

This piece was produced by Wishbox Media within the framework of Qarib Media, a regional program implemented by CFI Media and funded by AFD France.