March 2025 marks 14 years since civil war broke out in Syria—a violent conflict that has displaced more than 14 million people. Roughly 6.3 million of them still live as refugees scattered across the world. Mohammad Younis, 24, is one of them.
He was 10 years old when civil war broke out in his Syrian hometown of Homs. “Before the war, I was living a normal, happy life,” Mohammad recalls wistfully. “I was in school and everything was fine.” But when airplanes started dropping bombs, his family had to go on the run.
“We were traveling from place to place, with so many fears and dangers,” says Mohammad. “We were tormented, knowing that we could die sooner or later.”
With only the clothes on their backs, Mohammad and his family spent weeks moving around Homs in search of a safe harbor before deciding to make the “tiring and dangerous” journey to the Jordanian border. “My family and I spent a whole month on the road from Homs to the border,” says Mohammad. “We went days without eating or drinking, under the hot sun and sleeping under the sky.”
Finally, late one night, the family arrived on Syria’s border with Jordan. The next morning, the Jordanian army gave them a warm reception and processed them as refugees. Mohammad and his family were relieved to be safe at last, but their emotions were mixed as their new reality set in, not knowing when—or if—they would ever return home.
“We were safe and secure from the moment we reached the border,” says Mohammad. “But it was a very difficult feeling when I thought about leaving my country and my home, where I was born and raised.”
Mohammad and his family moved into Azraq refugee camp, an enormous sprawling desert camp on the outskirts of Amman that was set up quickly by the Jordanian government to accommodate the massive influx of Syrian refugees flooding over their border in the early days of the war. Refugees like Mohammad and his family were housed in converted shipping containers for shelter, with no electricity or running water for the first couple of years. But they adapted to life in the camp, and eventually Mohammad enrolled in a vocational training school, where he learned to be a barber. He began giving shaves and haircuts to his friends in their homes, and later opened an informal barber shop in the market—all while nursing his secret dream to become a photographer.
This dream was planted early, as a child in Syria when his father purchased a camera to take photos of the family on special occasions. Mohammad recalls how his father would keep the camera in a hidden cabinet and how he, as a boy, would sneak into cabinet and stare longingly at the camera. Once in Azraq camp as a young teen, Mohammad got a small phone with a built-in camera and began teaching himself to take photos, capturing images of children and elderly people in the camp. He began studying the lives of his fellow refugees and came to realize: “The voices of the people in the camp need to be heard.”
In 2022, Mohammad got a chance to work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as a volunteer photographer. As he discovered a love and passion for humanitarian photography—now blossoming thanks to the loan of some professional cameras—Mohammad’s talents and dedication did not go unnoticed, winning him multiple awards and scholarships. But when his UNHCR contract eventually ran up, Mohammad realized that he would have to go looking for work outside the camp, where he had lived with his family for more than 10 years.
Mohammad moved to Amman in early 2024, connecting with other young urban refugees through social media to find roommates and build community. He currently splits his time between a tiny, shared apartment in Amman and his parents’ shipping-container home in Azraq camp. However meager, Mohammad insists that living conditions in the city are “much better” than the camp, which is “a desert with a population of about 40,000 and few job opportunities.” He works hard to send money to his family, which largely relies on him for financial support.
Through his work, Mohammad meets many Syrians living in Jordan. They all try to help one another find work, housing and support. “A lot of people have helped me,” says Mohammad with visible gratitude. “As Syrians, we always stand by each other.”
In December 2024, Syria’s old regime was overthrown, leading to hopes of an end to the war. Many Syrian refugees in neighboring Lebanon and Jordan began to make their way back to their native country after more than a decade abroad. But unrest persists, leaving the fate of Syria and its millions of refugees in limbo still.
Mohammad is not one of the refugees thinking about going back to Syria. Instead, he dreams of being resettled and naturalized in a third country, a place with stability where he and his family can live in peace and experience better conditions. Meanwhile, he continues to make the most of his new life in Amman, while pursuing photography gigs and teaching himself filmmaking. “I want to visit people around the world and amplify the voices of underprivileged people through my visual work,” he says.
Through the poetic power of his searing images in Jordan, he’s already doing just that.
International Medical Corps has been supporting refugees in Jordan since the influx of Iraqi refugees after the 2003 war. In 2012, we expanded our support to Syrian refugees following the devastating crisis there. Today, International Medical Corps provides lifesaving healthcare, nutritional support, mental health and psychosocial support, child protection, services for women and girls who have experienced violence and livelihoods support across the country’s urban areas and its Azraq and Zaatari refugee camps. Learn more about our work in Jordan.