Um Abdulaziz is a widow living with her 4 children in a camp for displaced persons Idlib, Syria.
“I lost my husband during this crisis, and there is no longer anyone to support my family,” Um Abdulaziz says. “We live in miserable living conditions and extreme poverty, and we suffer from great difficulties in obtaining healthcare and medicines.”
There is a school in the camp where the family lives, but levels of education remain very low. Um Abdulaziz relies on food aid and other support from humanitarian organisations to meet her family’s basic needs.
“We eat lamb once a year, when humanitarian organisations offer it to us during the blessed Eid al-Adha. Eid is of great importance in our hearts, as it is linked to religious rituals,” Um Abdulaziz explains.
Recalling celebrations before the war, she says: “We used to prepare the most delicious food, drinks and sweets and buy new clothes a few days before the coming of Eid. We’d meet family and eat sacrificial meat. It was a very beautiful day.
“Now, we only eat meat once a year.”
Um Abdulaziz’s family is among those in northwestern Syria who received qurbani food parcels from Islamic Relief last year. Though the additional food helped to ease their burden, life remains challenging for the family.
“I hope that the crisis will end, and we will return to our homes, which we left two years ago, to live in peace and safety.”
