AMMAN: More than 80,000 Arab refugees from Israeli occupied Jordan, who had to leave their camp on the banks of the Jordan River last week due to Israeli bombing and shelling, are now living as best they can in mosques, public buildings and makeshift camps on the Amman High Plateau, the UN Refugee Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) disclosed yesterday [Feb 21].

The seven camps, set up in the Jordan River to care for the 80,000 refugees from occupied Jordan, are almost completely empty now, since the refugees picked up their meagre belongings and trekked to safer zones once more.

In the former UNRWA refugee camp at Kerame near the Hussein Bridge, only 10,000 persons still remained behind. Most of the refugees in the camp, as well as the Arabs in the villages in the northern part of the Valley, moved towards the safety of the highlands after the Feb 15 attacks. The situation of the refugees now homeless was made even worse by the heavy downpour of rain, which is still continuing.

Jordan has appealed to UNRWA, which is making every effort to shift materials and equipment from the Jordan camps to the Amman area as quickly as possible. But the new exodus of refugees posed very complex problems both for the UN organisation and the Jordanian authorities.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2018