Zaatari was only ever supposed to be a sparsely populated northern outpost on Jordan's border with Syria. But then in 2012 civil war broke out and the human tide began to flow across the border and the desert township became a city of of makeshift tents. The 3km refugee housing zone was designed to cater for 10,000 refugees, but in the space of two years, it's grown to 13 times its original size and now must house 130,000 refugees. Zaatari is now Jordan's fourth-largest city and the world's second-largest refugee camp. The United Nations is now calling the refugee crisis from the Syrian civil war one of the worst humanitarian crises in history. The flow of refugees across the border and into Zaatari shows no signs of slowing up. On some days, 4,000 people cross the border in search of a better life. But despite these odds, Andrew Harper, the chief of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Jordan, reckons his team on the ground have got the situation 'under control' and found a way to fit the desperate into the camp. They've started on another camp, Azraq, which will eventually house 100,000 refugees - who the UN expect to keep flowing across the border. 'I think we have generally got things under control,' he said confidently. 'But what we do need though is continued resources to keep making sure these people have got food, shelter, water and healthcare available.' Scroll down for video . With its neat alignment and rows of semi-permanent structures, this is the purpose built Azraq camp in the north of Jordan. Refugees are now being being taken here from the border and the overcrowded Zaatari camp . To raise the world's awareness of the scale of the problem they are facing, Mr Harper and UNHCHR photographer Jared Kohler have shot a series of imagines of life in Zaatari and the new Azraq camp. The images show the hardship of those who have endured the terrifying trip across from Syria and across the border, where they pray and hope to be picked up by UNHCR personnel and taken into camp as refugees. Mr Harper, a former Australian diplomat originally from Wagga Wagga in NSW, has plenty of experience to on the humanitarian front line. He's worked for the UN in Iraq, Iran and Turkey before taking control of Zaatari in 2012. Now he is helping to build Azraq, pictured above, which will be a semi-permanent place of residence already starting to cater for up to 100,000 refugees who will continue to arrive as long as the war in Syria continues. Mr Harper told Daily Mail Australia that he turned his back on a good career to return to Canberra to keep working on the relief effort. He would rather build a better life for these refugees than seek the safety of a job back in Australia. One of the biggest headaches he faces is predicting how many refugees will turn up at the border each day. 'Hundreds of thousands of people are crossing the border,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'At one point we were getting somewhere between 3,500 to 4,000 people fleeing Syria during the night.' Andrew Harper (third from left with sunglasses on his head) and soldiers on the ground in Jordan help a person cross the border from Syria into Jordan . Mr Harper said it's hard to translate these statistics into individual stories of hardship, but he says they are all seeking a better, safer, life. 'Everyone has a different story. Many of the children have lost their parents, their guardians, their families ... some children are asking when are we going to school, where are we going next.' The lucky ones have connections in Jordan - a country long regarded as an asylum for refugees. He said Jordan's people, many refugees themselves, are very 'welcoming and hospitable' and know what it is like to leave your family, possessions and comforts behind. 'Jordan is a fantastic country in terms of it's intake of refugees, ' he said. 'The Jordanians are a very hospitable country and there are plenty of descendants of refugees already living here.' While he said water, medicine and general living conditions at the Zaatari and Afraq refugee camps are at their most basic, the day-to-day struggles are usually far better than the bloodshed back home in Syria. Azraq is the better of the two camps, with its neat rows of purpose-built shelters that will eventually be able to cope with the overcrowded numbers of people populating the makeshift Zataari tents. It is, for now, the UNHCR's answer to the unfolding crisis and the overcrowding of new arrivals which he hopes ends with the end of conflict back in Syria. Syrian refugees with just the clothes on their back and some basic essentials make the journey through to Jordan where they are guarded by soldiers working on the ground . Humanitarian workers from UNHCR on border patrol survey the morning sunset as they prepare to meet a raft of new Syrian arrivals . Upon arrival at temporary camps exhausted refugees receive water and UNHCR food packages before being loaded into trucks and transported to processing centers, and eventually, Azraq Camp. A  shot across the makeshift Zaatari refugee camp where photographer Jared Kohler captured this photo with a flock of pigeons flying above at sunset . Zaatari camp by night shows the true size and scale of the region which is now overpopulated and at 13 times the capacity it was originally built to handle . Often, children become temporarily displaced from their parents because of the rush and large numbers of people crossing the border into Syria . UNHCR chief Andrew Harper is as much a part of the on-ground relief effort as the rest of his team . The biggest challenge facing the UNCHR, Mr Harper said, is that there is no estimating when the traffic of human crossings will stop . Many of the children that cross the border travel for days on an end wearing the same clothes, some flee from their Syrian houses in the dead of night wearing just their pyjamas and no shoes . Jordan has an incredibly welcoming hospitality and is known for its long-established history of accepting of refugees . UNCHR's top priority is to get refugees across the border, which at times, is a violent place where gun fire is  commonplace . Refugees battle the difficult terrain and dry desert region in Jordan's north . despite the hardship facing children at the refugee camps, these three still manage a smile for the camera as they play football in the desolate and isolated conditions . Newly arrived Syrian refugees wait at a desert processing center before they are transferred onward for registration and in most cases transfer to Arrival Processing Centre camps. Food is limited, but without the help of the UNHCR many of these young children would battle to survive . Man children are unaware of the situation back home, where as for others who have lost family members the realisation of fleeing is very real . These refugees are being taken to processing centres, where they will be then sent to Azraq Camp. Water is a finite resource in these overcrowded regions of Jordan, where every refugee pitches in to help each . The extremely hot and arid temperatures in Jordan's eastern desert makes conditions difficult for a swelling number of Syrian refugees . Syrian's visit a well in Azraq camp where they load up on essential supplies such as water . The UNHCR is a the world's largest humanitarian agency and has an  international staff of more than 8,600 people working across 126 countries. Education and healthcare are the UNHCR's top priority for these young children in Jordan camps who also manage to find time playing during the day .
Syrian Refugee crisis escalated in 2012, with thousands making the treacherous border crossing into Jordan .
These photos highlight the day-to-day struggles of the human movement from Syria into Jordan's camps .
The Zaatari camp, a makeshift home for refugees, has reached 13 times its capacity housing up to 130,000 people .
An Australian, Andrew Harper, has started the relief effort to help build a semi-permanent camp to house 100,000 .
Zaatari was only ever supposed to be a sparsely populated northern outpost on Jordan's border with Syria. But then in 2012 civil war broke out and the human tide began to flow across the border and the desert township became a city of of makeshift tents. The 3km refugee housing zone was designed to cater for 10,000 refugees, but in the space of two years, it's grown to 13 times its original size and now must house 130,000 refugees. Zaatari is now Jordan's fourth-largest city and the world's second-largest refugee camp. The United Nations is now calling the refugee crisis from the Syrian civil war one of the worst humanitarian crises in history. The flow of refugees across the border and into Zaatari shows no signs of slowing up. On some days, 4,000 people cross the border in search of a better life. But despite these odds, Andrew Harper, the chief of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Jordan, reckons his team on the ground have got the situation 'under control' and found a way to fit the desperate into the camp. They've started on another camp, Azraq, which will eventually house 100,000 refugees - who the UN expect to keep flowing across the border. 'I think we have generally got things under control,' he said confidently. 'But what we do need though is continued resources to keep making sure these people have got food, shelter, water and healthcare available.' Scroll down for video . With its neat alignment and rows of semi-permanent structures, this is the purpose built Azraq camp in the north of Jordan. Refugees are now being being taken here from the border and the overcrowded Zaatari camp . To raise the world's awareness of the scale of the problem they are facing, Mr Harper and UNHCHR photographer Jared Kohler have shot a series of imagines of life in Zaatari and the new Azraq camp. The images show the hardship of those who have endured the terrifying trip across from Syria and across the border, where they pray and hope to be picked up by UNHCR personnel and taken into camp as refugees. Mr Harper, a former Australian diplomat originally from Wagga Wagga in NSW, has plenty of experience to on the humanitarian front line. He's worked for the UN in Iraq, Iran and Turkey before taking control of Zaatari in 2012. Now he is helping to build Azraq, pictured above, which will be a semi-permanent place of residence already starting to cater for up to 100,000 refugees who will continue to arrive as long as the war in Syria continues. Mr Harper told Daily Mail Australia that he turned his back on a good career to return to Canberra to keep working on the relief effort. He would rather build a better life for these refugees than seek the safety of a job back in Australia. One of the biggest headaches he faces is predicting how many refugees will turn up at the border each day. 'Hundreds of thousands of people are crossing the border,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'At one point we were getting somewhere between 3,500 to 4,000 people fleeing Syria during the night.' Andrew Harper (third from left with sunglasses on his head) and soldiers on the ground in Jordan help a person cross the border from Syria into Jordan . Mr Harper said it's hard to translate these statistics into individual stories of hardship, but he says they are all seeking a better, safer, life. 'Everyone has a different story. Many of the children have lost their parents, their guardians, their families ... some children are asking when are we going to school, where are we going next.' The lucky ones have connections in Jordan - a country long regarded as an asylum for refugees. He said Jordan's people, many refugees themselves, are very 'welcoming and hospitable' and know what it is like to leave your family, possessions and comforts behind. 'Jordan is a fantastic country in terms of it's intake of refugees, ' he said. 'The Jordanians are a very hospitable country and there are plenty of descendants of refugees already living here.' While he said water, medicine and general living conditions at the Zaatari and Afraq refugee camps are at their most basic, the day-to-day struggles are usually far better than the bloodshed back home in Syria. Azraq is the better of the two camps, with its neat rows of purpose-built shelters that will eventually be able to cope with the overcrowded numbers of people populating the makeshift Zataari tents. It is, for now, the UNHCR's answer to the unfolding crisis and the overcrowding of new arrivals which he hopes ends with the end of conflict back in Syria. Syrian refugees with just the clothes on their back and some basic essentials make the journey through to Jordan where they are guarded by soldiers working on the ground . Humanitarian workers from UNHCR on border patrol survey the morning sunset as they prepare to meet a raft of new Syrian arrivals . Upon arrival at temporary camps exhausted refugees receive water and UNHCR food packages before being loaded into trucks and transported to processing centers, and eventually, Azraq Camp. A  shot across the makeshift Zaatari refugee camp where photographer Jared Kohler captured this photo with a flock of pigeons flying above at sunset . Zaatari camp by night shows the true size and scale of the region which is now overpopulated and at 13 times the capacity it was originally built to handle . Often, children become temporarily displaced from their parents because of the rush and large numbers of people crossing the border into Syria . UNHCR chief Andrew Harper is as much a part of the on-ground relief effort as the rest of his team . The biggest challenge facing the UNCHR, Mr Harper said, is that there is no estimating when the traffic of human crossings will stop . Many of the children that cross the border travel for days on an end wearing the same clothes, some flee from their Syrian houses in the dead of night wearing just their pyjamas and no shoes . Jordan has an incredibly welcoming hospitality and is known for its long-established history of accepting of refugees . UNCHR's top priority is to get refugees across the border, which at times, is a violent place where gun fire is commonplace . Refugees battle the difficult terrain and dry desert region in Jordan's north . despite the hardship facing children at the refugee camps, these three still manage a smile for the camera as they play football in the desolate and isolated conditions . Newly arrived Syrian refugees wait at a desert processing center before they are transferred onward for registration and in most cases transfer to Arrival Processing Centre camps. Food is limited, but without the help of the UNHCR many of these young children would battle to survive . Man children are unaware of the situation back home, where as for others who have lost family members the realisation of fleeing is very real . These refugees are being taken to processing centres, where they will be then sent to Azraq Camp. Water is a finite resource in these overcrowded regions of Jordan, where every refugee pitches in to help each . The extremely hot and arid temperatures in Jordan's eastern desert makes conditions difficult for a swelling number of Syrian refugees . Syrian's visit a well in Azraq camp where they load up on essential supplies such as water . The UNHCR is a the world's largest humanitarian agency and has an  international staff of more than 8,600 people working across 126 countries. Education and healthcare are the UNHCR's top priority for these young children in Jordan camps who also manage to find time playing during the day .
of makeshift tents. The 3km refugee housing zone will eventually house 100,000 refugees - who the and the overcrowded Zaatari camp . To raise the Zaatari in 2012. Now he is helping to build starting to cater for up to 100,000 refugees who the relief effort. He would rather build a better 'Hundreds of thousands of people are crossing the Andrew Harper (third from left with sunglasses on help a person cross the border from Syria into basic, the day-to-day struggles are usually far Azraq is the better of the two camps, with its is now overpopulated and at 13 times the capacity