SUHAİR AL-IDLİBİ

Idlib – After the farmers of Idlib completed the harvest of potatoes for about ten days, a sad contest starts among the children staying in the refugee camps in the countryside of Idlib. A contest to collect what has been left by the farmers. Some children collect potatoes to sell them while others take them to their families for dinner.

“Collecting potatoes left after the harvest is one of the ways for children to make money”

13-year-old Mihemed Şems El-Dîn living in the Sarmeda refugee camp located in Idlib walks for several hours every morning to collect potatoes. “Potato is a basic staple food for us. Every day, I collect more than 10 kilograms of potatoes after working for hours with a group of children due to the recent price hikes. We mostly eat potatoes but now our family can't even buy them because of their high price,” he told us.

She doesn’t go to school for several days in order to support her family

Children in the refugee camps don’t go to school for several days after the harvest of potatoes. 12-year-old Mulham El-Ebed is one of them. “I will go to school again after collecting potatoes left by the farmers. I come here to help my family,” Mulham El-Ebed said that she has lived in the camp with her family for three years. “My family is poor like everyone else around us and I feel I should do whatever I can to help my family. After collecting the potatoes, I will try to find out another way to help my family.”

She wants to send her son to school but…

35-year-old Neda El-Camus told us that she cannot send her son to school. She asked her son to help her in order to collect the potatoes left after the harvest. “My son is very successful in school. He likes going to school but we are poor and he helps us to collect potatoes. We live in very difficult conditions, we are refugees and we don’t get any help,” she said that her son will go to school again after collecting the potatoes.