Construction work is underway at this busy refugee camp in Duhok.

Syrian families, who are still living in tents, have been supplied with materials, including cement, blocks, tiles, sand, metals and sandwich panels.

They've also been given a 240 US dollar allowance to build houses, which will protect them from rain and water leakage, especially in the winter.

The Human Appeal organisation and the Board of Relief and Humanitarian Affairs at Duhok governorate are behind the project to build 131 houses.

"In the beginning our situation was not good when we were in the tents. But thanks to God, they are building for us now and that situation will improve, God willing," says Zeina Mohammed, a Syrian refugee from Hasakah.

She has been living with seven other family members in a small tent and hopes the new buildings will provide more space.

There are 1,892 families - a total of 8,760 people - living inside Domiz 2 camp for Syrian refugees.

When the new housing project is completed, all the Syrian refugee families at Domiz 2 camp will be living in permanent and solid structures.

"At first, we were living inside tents and we suffered a lot during rain and snowfall on the tents," says Malik Berzan Abdulrahman, a Syrian refugee from Hasakeh who is helping to build his house.

"They brought to us blocks, cement, sand and everything in order to build our house. Thanks to God, we are safe now. There won't be rain or snow on us."

Yahya Adem Marouf, manager of Domiz 2 camp, says a survey taken inside the camp revealed that the vast majority of Syrians living there are not willing to go back to Syria in the near future.

According to the camp manager, most aid organisations left the camp after military operations in Mosul stopped in July 2017 and there is not enough food being distributed for all the refugees in the camp.

More than 250,000 Syrian refugees, the majority of whom are Syrian Kurds, have been living in the Northern Kurdish region of Iraq since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011.

Most of them are living in camps scattered across the region's three governorates.