When Zaem fled violence and conflict in his hometown of Al-Hassakah in northeast Syria in 2019, he did not imagine that, a few years later, he would find peace – and a livelihood opportunity – in raising bees and harvesting honey in Iraq.
“I used to trade wheat, barley and cotton in Syria…the economic situation was stable. But after the war broke out, everything collapsed,” he recalls.
Zaem, 61, a Syrian refugee in Qushtapa, Iraq, attends to his daily work as a beekeeper © UNHCR/ Rasheed Hussein Rasheed
With his wife and four children, they left everything behind and made their way to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, using all their savings. With no financial means, the family struggled to make ends meet.
But amidst this hardship, Zaem picked up an unusual hobby of beekeeping. “I always wanted to do beekeeping. I wouldn’t be successful now if I hadn’t liked it,” he says. It all started when Zaem started receiving cash assistance from UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, in 2023. Once he covered his family’s most basic needs, he used the small amount that was left over to turn his passion into something more. “I wanted to be self-dependent. I did not want to rely on humanitarian assistance. That life is meaningless….”
At first, he invested in two beehives. Very quickly, he started producing and selling honey. With his profit, he bought more beehives and expanded his beekeeping business. Every day now, the 61-year-old puts on his beekeeping suit before starting work on the 15 hives that are scattered on the fields surrounding his small home in the Qushtapa sub-district of Erbil. With a smoker in hand, he carefully puffs out thin streams of cool smoke to calm the bees, so that he can inspect the honeycombs.
Last year’s harvest was successful and Zaem can now rely on his beekeeping business to provide for his family. “I could not have uplifted my family’s living standards without the cash support. Now that I don’t need it anymore, I hope it will continue to support other vulnerable people,” says Zaem.
Zaem holding a smoker in hand, carefully puffed out thin streams of smoke, calming the bees as he prepared the honeycombs for their return © UNHCR/ Rasheed Hussein Rasheed
In Iraq, many refugees rely on irregular daily labour in the informal sector, earning an average of USD 350 per month, which is below the national poverty line. This inadequate income means they cannot afford basic necessities, let alone improve their living conditions or save for the future. UNHCR estimates that 98 per cent of refugee families in Iraq are in debt just to afford food, send their children to school and pay rent.
Cash assistance is given to the most vulnerable refugees, so they can cover their most basic needs like rent and food. Thanks to support from donors like the United States of America, UNHCR’s cash assistance programme has had a profound impact on the lives of refugees in Iraq. In 2023, 58,000 vulnerable refugees received assistance of USD 230 per month for 12 months. Of them, 79 per cent said they were able to meet half of their basic needs, which helped reduce their feeling of stress and improve their living conditions, 43 per cent reported an improvement in their food security and 15 per cent reported being able to enroll their children in school.
In 2024, UNHCR needs USD 91,000,000 to provide cash assistance to 33,100 refugee households identified as most at risk in Iraq.
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