The emotional scene, captured for SBS' online documentary series, Exit Syria, shows Amira – not her real name – travelling to her former husband’s home with the help of a neighbour.
On arrival, she has difficulty gaining access to the children, who are reluctant to see their mother.
"I asked Samira, 'who do you like, your old mother or your new one?'" a neighbouring child tells Amira.
"She said 'the new one'."
But the four children are eventually brought into the room where Amira is waiting.
"You don't want to come to me?" she cries to her children, who appear overwhelmed by the scene.
"You should come to me."
But eldest daughter Samira tells Amira that is not an option.
"Dad won't let us," she says.
Amira's reunion:
The distraught mother faces an impossible situation.
She moved away from the children after she says her husband and father-in-law "kicked her out", but when she is reunited with them, neighbouring women urge her to come back.
"Come back to your kids, it’s better," one woman tells her.
"Forget your husband and everything they have."
The sprawling, dusty camp some 70 kilometres from the Syrian border, inside Jordan, has become home to up to 120,000 refugees fleeing violence in their home country.
Many of them are children. Others are known criminals, according to UNHCR chief on the ground Kilian Kleinschmidt.
The SBS online documentary Exit Syria: Diaries from Za'atari is being updated daily by filmmaker Sherine Salama, who is spending a month in the camp for the project.
“It’s not a fly-in journalist kind of approach where you take a grab and fly out, or do an interview and fly out,” she says.
“We’re actually getting to know the families.”
Australian Red Cross is running the Syria Crisis 2012 Appeal to support the millions of people affected by the conflict in Syria. To make a donation to the appeal, visit www.redcross.org.au or make a donation via credit card by phoning 1800 811 700.
