ZAATARI, Jordan, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A marketplace has sprung up in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, where many realize they might be living for months, not just days or weeks, U.N. officials said.
Some 38,000 refugees live in a camp in Zaatari, Jordan, said Andrew Harper, a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan.
The refugees have poured in from across the Syrian border, mostly from the city of Dara'a, where the uprising began, The New York Times reported Wednesday. At the height of the influx, about 3,500 Syrians crossed the border into Jordan in one 24-hour period in the summer, and though the daily number of refugee crossings has decreased, it remains steady.
With the tens of thousands of people living in tents in Zaatari, a marketplace has sprung up along the main road in the camp, called Hamra Street after a similar shopping strip in Damascus.
Shops sell perfumes, cigarettes, produce to supplement dry rations and used clothing, the Times reported.
"This is what happens when you get tens of thousands of people together: an economy starts developing," Harper said.
