Activists in the Rukban IDPs camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the camp in light of the severe shortages of food supplies. Prices of essential food items have recently skyrocketed with one pack of bread costing around 500 Syrian pounds, a price that most families cannot afford.
The suffering of refugees in the camp built in no-man’s-land on the Jordanian-Syrian border has been compounded by the intensified fighting in the Syrian Desert, activists added. The ongoing clashes cut off the only remaining supply routes from the Syrian side of the border, putting an estimated 80,000 refugees in front of an unknown fate.
“Residents of the camp are living in constant fear of their fate and the fate of their children as the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and the Assad regime forces are advancing on the area,” said Omar Binayya, spokesman for the Tadmur and the Syrian Desert tribal council. He said that the camps are now besieged from almost all direction while the clashes are hindering the delivery of food supplies to the camp.
A refugee in the camp who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that “humanitarian aid rarely reaches the camp, causing many children to starve or die from diseases due to the lack of medical centers and the prevention of patients from entering Jordan for treatment.” Furthermore, clean water has been cut off from the camp for over week, further aggravating the suffering of refugees.
Over 25 children have so far died as a result of the lack of medical services, while only three aid deliveries arrived at the camp in the last year, Binayya added.
Established in 2015, the Rukban camp is home to around 80,000 people who fled the Assad regime’s war machine towards the Jordanian border but remain stranded there as the Jordanian authorities announced they could not take in all the refugees. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Asharq Al-Awsat)
