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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Conflict in many parts of the Middle East has left Jordan shouldering a heavy load when it comes to refugees.

Most of them have crossed the border from Syria and Iraq.

They hope to return one day, but the deepening crisis back home means their stay is indefinite.

Many refugees have begun new lives and even started businesses.

Abu Haytham has not seen his home in a decade, and at the age of 70 he doesn't think he will ever see Iraq again

“Iraq is gone, it's over. We have now reached a stage where we are convinced that our country is finished,” he says.

Abu Haytham fled Iraq in 2005. He opened his popular Baghdad restaurant in Amman, serving masgoof, traditional Iraqi fish.

The restaurant has been a success, catering mostly to Iraqis missing home.

Like Mehdi al-Zobai, who has been in Jordan since 2004. Eight years ago he married a Jordanian.

“I am used to life in Jordan now, but that doesn't mean I don't think of my country and long for it, every time I hear an Iraqi song, I cry,” said Mehdi Zobai.

Over the past 10 years, Jordan has become home to half a million Iraqis, the majority from their country's upper and middle class, and they've settled in cities like Amman.

Decades before the Iraqi exodus of 2003, Jordan took in Palestinians in 1948 and 1967. They were granted Jordanian citizenship.Now more than half of Jordan's population is of Palestinian origin.

And just over the past four years, this country of little resources opened its doors to 1.4 million Syrians displaced by yet another war on its border, more burden on an already strained economy.

Only 20 percent of them are living in refugee camps, the vast majority are urban refugees in Jordanian cities.

On one commercial street in the capital there's no shortage of Syrian cafes and restaurants.

Like one owned by Abu Abdullah.

He left Damascus with his family three years ago, determined to survive. Within months of arriving he opened the restaurant.

“It is very difficult restarting your life from scratch. It's like moving to a different planet, especially when you have children. It's a neighboring country and it's like our own people, but it's still difficult,” said Abdullah.

Abdullah says it's too painful to watch what's going on at home, but he holds on to the hope that someday, soon, they will go back.

But soon appears unlikely, with no end in sight to the violence in this neighborhood of turmoil.

*CNN