Bab al-Salam , Syria ( CNN ) -- It is a sight almost as surreal as it is disturbing : three boys , on the cusp of being teenagers , digging furiously with their hands and sticks . It is in some ways playtime , but there is little innocence left in this refugee camp sandwiched between Syria 's north and an unwelcoming Turkish border . Muhammad Zafir says their frantic excavations are in case `` jets come and drop bombs , '' he said . `` We put children here to hide them , but of course we will make it much bigger for 20 to 30 . '' It is a testament to their fast and unnatural path into manhood : Hours that should be spent idling or playing football are lost to digging an air raid shelter . Muhammad can explain the different noises made by jet missiles , rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns . The three boys are also digging peepholes into their structure , so they could see outside during any attack . It 's rudimentary and made entirely of mud and finger marks , but it is all they have . This is life for the 8,000 Syrians who fled everything , hoping for something but ending up with little . Despite being some 100 yards from a NATO power -- the doorstep of Europe -- and a developed economy , they scavenge for wood and burn plastic to keep warm . They chop down weeds to supplement their faltering diet . Some 22 months into the war -- and despite the world 's sympathy -- they face a winter of freezing temperatures and uncertain food . Refugees in the Bab al-Salam camp just inside Syria can see the Turkish refugee camps from the roofs of their buildings , but Turkey for now will not accept them . So they are caught between the war they fled and the outside world that will not embrace them . They number some 200 families and growing , huddled around plastic tents that work as temporary shelter during summer but will do little to protect them from the frost of winter . Husan Shammo used to work in the nearby town of Azaz for the Red Crescent and is now the closest thing this sprawling camp has to an organizer . He explains why so many ended up shut out by Turkey . `` Of course 80 % of those here came hoping to cross into Turkey , '' he said , `` but the Turkish government stopped hosting over six weeks ago . People are furious , and we ca n't provide a lot of their daily needs . '' Here , within earshot of Turkey 's highways , you can also hear the distant but occasional thud of artillery -- a reminder that the war they fled remains the worse option over the squalor they now endure . Winter , however , will be their greatest enemy in the months ahead . Dozens of families have taken advantage of the concrete truck shelters at this border crossing , moving their tents into the hangar-like structures , hoping the roofs will provide a little more shelter . But for Abdul Qadr al-Hasan 's daughter Siham , the cold came too fast . Holding his surviving daughter , the thick-set man describes how Siham died . `` She was not sick . She did n't have any problems at all . We were up late that night and we were playing with her , '' he said . `` We woke up the next morning ... She was curled into a ball from the cold . We buried her in the village . Her sister is afraid now of the cold . '' Had his family had a stove in their tent just a few weeks earlier , Siham would have lived . But the struggle to keep warm brings its own hazards . Wood is scarce . Easier to find is plastic , which burns with a sickly , acrid smoke . Children scour the fields for this `` treasure '' but then reap the consequences from the heat : a poisonous blanket of smoke that brings hacking coughs to each settlement . At the sun sets , children find a patch of herbs -- weeds almost -- growing naturally against a wall and cut them down for food . Despite being so close to a developed economy , they are reeling with the war raging next door . But now it is the best the world has to offer for these 8,000 Syrians . For more coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis , click here .
The children dig an air raid shelter to protect against attack . They are among 200 Syrian families at Bab al - Arab camp in Syria on Turkish border . Turkey does not accept them . Children find weeds for food on doorstep to Europe .