Syria Refugees Shrug Off Peace Talks But Dream Of Home

AZRAQ REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Feb, 2017 ) - Almost six years into a war that has devastated their country, Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon say they expect nothing of peace talks this month but still dream of going home.

"I don't think anything will come of the talks" this week in Kazakhstan and the next in Switzerland, says Ahmad al-Khabouri, 32, at a refugee camp in Jordan. But the young man, who fled Syria with his wife and children in 2014, says he still clings on to hope of returning home some day.

"I don't know if my house has been destroyed or not, but I want to return home even if we've managed to make a new life for ourselves here," he says.

The war has killed more than 310,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

In the Azraq refugee camp, Khabouri runs a small shop that sells shisha tobacco and bicycles, the only method of transport for around 54,000 residents in the settlement. Sitting beside him outside his shop, Khabouri's 65-year-old uncle says he still thinks about his home and surrounding fields in Daraa, the southern cradle of Syria's uprising.

But he says he is just as disillusioned about the latest rounds of talks between the regime and rebels set to take place in Astana on Thursday and in Geneva on February 23.