COVID-19 & Refugees

In-Sight Collaborative
Madi Williamson and Leena Zahra
Focus Areas
Leena

● General Context
● Generalized vulnerability pre/post COVID outbreak: Conflict and Disaster Induced
forced displacement in urban communities
● Advocacy in the #SocialDistancing Era

Madi

● Camp context
● Healthcare and aid delivery in acute humanitarian crisis zones pre/post COVID outbreak
Context
● 70 million people forcibly displaced worldwide
● Every 2 seconds, someone is forced to flee their
home
● COVID-19:
○ In some situations, 100-500 die daily
symptomatic and asymptomatic not limited to
age, gender and socioeconomic background (more
at-risk, vulnerable more likely to get hit)
● Context of Syria:
○ > 500,000 deaths
○ Divide into 9 year Revolution= 152 deaths daily
○ 12 million internally and externally displaced
○ Recent outbreak in Idlib (Northwest Syria)
Generalized Vulnerability
Global US
● Confined to borders, reception/detention centers,
prisons, makeshift homes, abandoned buildings,
apartments with overcrowded conditions, camps,
military bases etc
● Transit/Stuck circumstances does not allow
Social Distancing and ability for basic health
● Access to Immigration services
● Ramadan
● Family reunification/separation
● Sense of community further diminished
● Employment
● Chronic medical needs and disability
● Family Structure
● Daycare
● Access to resources and services
● Rent/Impending Eviction and Utility cut-off
● Ramadan
● Family reunification/separation
● Sense of community is further diminished
Advocacy in the #SocialDistancing Era
Storytelling as a form of medicine

● Voices not continue to be silenced

● Shift narrative and stigma
● Generational trauma
● International recognition and protection
● Shell-shocked identity confusion; Need for
individuality
● Solidarity and connectivity; Build bridges
● Highlight resilience, humanizing and
accurate portrayals
 Primary Areas to Consider
● Health
- The health of the population as it relates to
their basic survival needs being met

● Aid delivery
- Supply chain management and
distribution strategies

● The lived environment

- The context we are intervening in must be
thoroughly understood

● Legal and political situation

- People’s needs and our ability to meet
them will depend on laws and policy
 Health - Physiological/Environmental
Communicable diseases and illnesses spread quickly in
crowded conditions

Poor sanitation leads to problems with fungal or

parasitic skin infections for people of all ages

Lack of access to toilets increases the risk of developing

UTIs

Fires, hot water, and oil heaters are the only heat sources
in the winter so burns are common

Poor nutrition makes wounds slow to heal

Smoke from cooking fires causes persistent respiratory

problems especially in children
 Health - Mental
Refugees may be exposed to traumatic events at any
point in their journey

- Their home country

- Their journey to camps
- Continued trauma in their new host country

Mental health services are difficult to establish for lots of

reasons

Mental health also has strong cultural ties and will vary
based on an individual’s perception of mental health and
healthcare
 Our System of Aid Delivery
● Filling the gaps
- Identifying where there is a lack of aid
● Equitable Aid Delivery
- Ticketing system in camp to ensure people
have equal opportunity to come to the
distribution
- Computerized registration system that uses
the file ID and case ID of police papers to
track who comes to receive aid
● Inclusion of the Affected Population
- In needs assessment and the planning and
implementation of interventions
 The Lived Environment

Vial camp is now home to around 7,000 people but

was designed to hold 1,100

Most refugee camps lack adequate sanitation,

enough toilets, and struggle with overcrowding

Shelters are weak and flimsy or are overcrowded

containers turned into dormitories
 Special Considerations with COVID-19

Our main concern is the speed at which this will spread

in overcrowded spaces without adequate sanitation

Hospitals in places like Chios, or countries like Greece,

will not have the capacity to handle this situation

People displaced from conflict zones might have other

problems that make an illness like COVID-19 more
dangerous

The supply chain of regular aid delivery has been

disrupted by the pandemic and this will also have severe
consequences
 Aid Delivery with COVID-19
Reallocation of funds for sanitation supplies and food

Disruption of supply chain and access to the affected

population

Break in communication

Planning for an outbreak in camp

 Mental Health with COVID-19
Social isolation

Loss of communication

Delay in court proceedings and all immigration services

Fear and anxiety

 Physiological Health with COVID-19
Lack of access to food can cause disruptions for
anyone with diet-related illnesses and weaken
immunity from inadequate nutrition

Additionally, Influenza A and B are brutal this

year and were sweeping through camp during my
time there in February

Some people will not be able to maintain their

exercise regimens as the camp locks down and
people are not free to leave (to run or to go to the
gym) and recreational support centers close
In-Sight Collaborative Website

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