The Messages That Hold Refugee Families Together
"Listening to these messages, I felt these stories had been given a life"
They send back messages of love, hope and sorrow. Hundreds of thousands Syrian refugees have fled their homeland for Jordan, Turkey and, in increasing numbers, Europe. But families separated by thousands of miles still stay connected, thanks to smartphones and applications like the cross-platform mobile messaging program WhatsApp.
For the past three years, Jordanian-American photographer Tanya Habjouqa has been documenting the aftermath of the Arab Spring and Syria’s descent into civil war through the eyes of the millions of refugees that have flocked to Jordan and across the Mediterranean. At the end of a two-month stretch in the Azraq and Zaatari refugee camps, as well as in Amman, Ramtha and Irbid, she came to a crossroads. “Since Alan Kurdi, the imagery around Syrian refugees is ubiquitous,” she says. “We’ve seen everything.” Looking at her own work, Habjouqa thought her images failed to convey the urgency of this story as millions of Syrians continue to live in squalid conditions in Jordanian, Turkish and Greek refugee camps. Her role, she says, was to make people care for these refugees at a time when public opinion is shifting toward isolationism.
“I was racking my brain,” she says, “trying to find the imagery that said something I hadn’t been said again and again.”
Then, toward the end of her assignment, she saw a mother playing an audio message of her husband singing a lullaby to their child. The woman’s husband had sent his messages from Germany, where he was residing apart from his family. Listening to his messages, she felt that the story gained new life.
Structure of the Lead：
WHO- Tanya Habjouqa
WHEN- the past three years
WHAT- send back messages
WHY-
WHERE- Arab Spring and Syria
HOW- by Whatsapp
keywords
1.homeland 祖國
2.platform 平台
3.document 證明
4.aftermath 後果
5.descent 下降
6.Mediterranean 地中海
7.crossroads 十字路口
8.ubiquitous 無所不在的
9.urgency 催促
10.squalid 骯髒的
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