(MEE) About 60,000 Syrian refugees, more than half of whom are children, are trapped at the Jordanian border and in desperate need of aid after the government in Amman halted supplies of water, food and medical care, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned on Thursday.
Residents of the isolated Ruqban camp, which lies in the desert directly on the frontier between Jordan and Syria, told MSF that the fighting within Syria had spread to the informal camp, and that they had become too scared to venture out and look for supplies.
“There are gun sounds at night – too many people have guns,” one resident, a 38-year-old woman, told MSF.
Backlogs of thousands of people began to build up in the area in 2014, when the Jordanian government closed all its land borders with Syria apart from Ruqban and another post 80km to the west.
However, the situation in Ruqban has approached breaking point, MSF says, since the Jordanian government halted all aid activities in the camp last week.
The move was a response to a suicide attack that hit a nearby military outpost on 21 June, killing seven Jordanian soldiers and injuring 14 others on 21 June.
MSF officials warned that, while conditions in the camp before the forced suspension of aid activities had been “extremely harsh,” staying at Ruqban was no longer a viable option.
“These people – more than 50 per cent of whom are children – desperately need the immediate resumption of the provision of food, water and medical care. This cannot wait,” said MSF’s operations manager Benoit de Gryse.
Conditions at the desert camp have remained largely under the radar, since legal and security constraints mean that the Jordanian military, aid agencies and journalists are prevented from directly accessing the area.
However, rare footage of the camp received by Middle East Eye – shot by a member of the Free Syrian Army who patrols the area – showed squalid conditions in the wind-racked tent city.
The footage shows that the camp, once a temporary informal settlement, is becoming increasingly built up, with more permanent structures being erected.
Jordanian officials have expressed suspicion over the presence of large numbers of Syrian refugees at their border, with a government spokesperson telling MEE that many of the camp’s residents had “no convincing answer” as to why they were there.
Tensions – already high since King Abdullah in February said there was “IS elements” among the residents – sky-rocketed following the IS-claimed attack on a military outpost last week.
A week after aid to the camp was cut off, MSF on Thursday called for the international community to take more responsibility for the refugees at Ruqban, warning that staying in the camp was no longer a viable option.
“Assistance alone is not enough. People fleeing war should be offered international protection and a safe place to relocate. Neither Syria nor the border are safe today,” said De Gryse.
“This is a collective responsibility and a massive failure of the international community. This is not just Jordan’s responsibility. There are plenty of countries both in and outside of the region who should also step up to offer a safe place for refugees.”
This article (30,000 Children ‘In Desperate Need’ at Syrian Border After Aid Halted) by MEE staff originally appeared onMiddleEastEye.net and was used with permission.
