[JORDAN] UNHCR: UNHCR chief urges action to tackle rising poverty of Syrian refugees

14 January 2015

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres appealed on Wednesday for a huge increase in financial support to Syrian refugees and the countries hosting them, as a new report revealed large numbers slipping deeper into poverty.

The UNHCR report, entitled "Living in the Shadows," showed that two-thirds of Syrian refugees across Jordan are now living below the national poverty line, and one in six lives in extreme poverty with expenditure of only around US$1.30 per day. The findings are based on the largest ever survey of refugee living conditions, involving nearly 150,000 individuals.

"The problem is that the assistance that is currently provided . . . is insufficient to be able to guarantee a dignified life to all the Syrians living in Jordan, as well as in Lebanon or any of the other neighbouring countries," Guterres told a news conference in Amman.

"This creates a situation in which the Syrian people are suffering a double jeopardy, first of all as victims of a conflict with no end in sight – and the despair that generates – and then being forced to live in extremely poor conditions," he added.

With the Syria crisis about to enter its fifth year, the report found that most refugees are becoming increasingly dependent on humanitarian assistance for survival, with a corresponding decline in living standards.

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[EU-SYRIA] ENPI: EU-Syria: €180 million to deal with refugee crisis and spill-over in Lebanon and Jordan

4 December 2014

The European Commission today adopted a package worth €180 million to deal with the effects of the Syrian crisis in the country itself, as well as in Lebanon and Jordan, who are currently hosting around 1.1 million and 630,000 refugees respectively. This package deals with the longer-term development needs of refugees and internally displaced persons. It addresses in particular the education of children and young adults, in line with the UNICEF-sponsored “No Lost Generation” Initiative, as well as measures to improve the resilience of the refugees as well as the communities hosting them through economic development activities.

 

"Today, the EU cannot simply watch the suffering of Syrian people without acting," said Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs. "We are ready and willing to bring a continued support to the people of Syria and to the neighbouring countries hosting Syrian refugees. It is time for things to change. We are determined to play our role to the full and bring a lasting political solution to this regional crisis."

 

Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn added: "The EU stands by the Syrian people who need all the help they can get in this terrible crisis, as well as the Lebanese and Jordanian people who are under huge pressure in hosting such a high number of refugees. With these funds, 2.5 million children in the region will be given a chance to receive education and to prepare themselves for the time when peace is restored and their skills will be needed to rebuild Syria. I had the opportunity to discuss these matters with the Prime Minister of Lebanon during his visit to Brussels earlier this week.”

 

Out of the total amount of €180 million, €41 million will provide assistance to the population still inside Syria, €66 million will help Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan, and €73 million to those in Lebanon.

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[JORDAN] Human Rights Watch: Vulnerable Refugees Forcibly Returned to Syria

24 november 2014

(Beirut) – Jordanian authorities have forcibly deported vulnerable Syrian refugees back to Syria in violation of Jordan’s international obligations. Those deported include wounded men and unaccompanied children.

Refugee deportations violate the international law principle of nonrefoulement, which forbids governments from returning people to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened. Those deported include a group of 12 Syrian refugees who had been receiving treatment at a rehabilitation center in northern Jordan as well as four refugees, three of them children, whom Jordanian border police intercepted near the Syrian border.

“Jordan is carrying a heavy refugee burden, but it should not be in the business of sending any refugees back to a conflict zone where their lives are threatened, much less children and wounded men who can’t even walk,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “Such deportations create an environment of fear that affects all refugees.”

A Syrian refugee, Mohammed (not his real name), told Human Rights Watch that a Jordanian border patrol fired on two of his sons, ages 14 and 17, two of their cousins, both under 18,and a 20-year-old Syrian acquaintance as they rode motorcycles near the Syrian border at 12:30 p.m. on November 14, 2014. All are refugees registered with UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

The 17-year-old was wounded in the right leg and is being treated at a hospital inside Jordan, his father said. The other four were deported. The children’s parents and siblings remain in Jordan.

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[Jordan] the Jordan Times - Egyptian guest worker wins lawsuit against public institutions for ‘arbitrary detention’

2 November 2014

AMMAN — For the first time in Jordan, a guest worker has won a case against several state institutions for allegedly taking “arbitrary” measures against him, according to a local advocacy group.

In a judicial precedent, Amman Magistrates Court Judge Haifa Kayyali recently ruled in favour of Egyptian Hamadeen Najdi, who filed a lawsuit against the interior minister, the Public Security Department director, the director of Jweideh Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre and the Amman governor for putting him in administrative detention for 70 days, then detaining him for 13 months until deportation procedures were over.

Najdi was arrested by Labour Ministry inspectors for not renewing his work permit, which the employer — who is responsible for permit renewal — terminated after disputes with him, according to Tamkeen for Legal Aid and Support, which handled the labourer’s case.

The worker was then detained at the south Amman police station, although the Criminal Court Law does not allow detaining any suspect for more than 24 hours before referring him/her to court.

Moreover, the Amman governor issued a decision to deport the Egyptian and keep him in detention until deportation measures were completed, resulting in detaining him for 13 months, according to Tamkeen.

The labourer was only released after going on a hunger strike.

In her ruling, Kayyali said the measures taken against Najdi had “arbitrarily” deprived him of his freedom and caused him psychological and financial losses, particularly as he came to work in a new country accompanied by his wife and young daughter.

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[Réfugiés de Syrie] ENPI News - Plus de neuf millions de réfugiés syriens : le PE examine comment leur venir en aide

4 novembre 2014

Les députés de la commission du développement du Parlement européen ont discuté hier de la crise humanitaire en Syrie et de la situation des réfugiés dans la région, alors que plus de neuf millions de Syriens ont fui le pays, à cause de la guerre et de la menace posée par l’État islamique (EI), vers des pays voisins comme la Jordanie, le Liban et la Turquie pour beaucoup d’entre eux.

 

Cet échange de vues est intervenu après les débats de la session plénière d’octobre sur la situation à Kobané, ville assiégée par l’EI, et la question des citoyens européens qui rejoignent l’EI.

 

Carsten Hansen, du Conseil norvégien pour les réfugiés, a déclaré lors de la réunion présidée par la députée démocrate socialiste britannique Linda McAvan : « Nous devons au moins soutenir l’aide humanitaire européenne existante et le développement des pays voisins de la Syrie ».

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[Refugees from Syria] ENPI News - Nine million and counting: EP discusses how to help Syrian refugees

4 November 2014

The European Parliament’s Development Committee yesterday discussed the situation of Syrian refugees and the humanitarian crisis in the region, as more than nine million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes due to the war and the threat of the Islamic State (IS), with many of them going to neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

 

The exchange of views followed October's plenary debates on the situation in Kobanê, which is under siege by IS, and the issue of Europeans joining IS.

 

The meeting was chaired by Linda McAvan, a UK member of the S&D group. Referring to the current situation, Carsten Hansen, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said: "At the minimum we need to sustain existing EU humanitarian and development support to countries neighbouring Syria."

Gilles Hansoul, of the International Committee of the Red Cross, added: "We appeal to all parties to the conflict to facilitate neutral, independent and impartial humanitarian action."

After the guest speakers described the gravity of the situation, Eleni Theocharous a Cypriote member of the EPP group, pointed out that humanitarian corridors needed to be opened: "Otherwise we will see that the only people left in Syria will be those trying to kill each other." She added that it would be difficult for countries in southern Europe to receive more refugees.

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[Réfugiés de Syrie] Parlement européen - Syrie et Irak: le nombre de réfugiés met la pression aux pays voisins

14 octobre 2014

Plus de neufs millions de Syriens ont été forcés de quitter le pays ces dernières années. Avec l’avancée de l’État islamique en Syrie et en Irak, la situation a empiré. « Aucun conflit n’a vu tant de morts, tant de réfugiés, tant de personnes déplacées en si peu de temps », a déclaré Frej Fennniche, représentant de l’OHCHR lors d’une audition organisée lundi 13 octobre par la sous-commission des droits de l’homme.

Elena Valenciano, députée démocrate socialiste espagnole et présidente de la sous-commission des droits de l’homme, a ouvert l’audition en rappelant le besoin d’augmenter l’aide humanitaire comme indiqué dans la résolution du Parlement européen du 18 septembre.

Frej Fenniche (Chef de la section du Proche-Orient et de l’Afrique du Nord du Bureau du Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies aux droits de l’homme) a appelé la communauté internationale à répondre à l’appel à l’aide de Kobané, ville du Kurdistan syrien.

5,2 millions de personnes ont besoin d’assistance humanitaire en Irak actuellement. Leyla Ferman, co-présidente de la fédération des yezidis d’Europe qui représente la minorité religieuse des yezidis en Irak, a demandé un soutien international et rappelé que les gens ne survivront pas à l’hiver sans aide

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[Refugees from Syria] European Parliament - Syria and Iraq: growing numbers of refugees put pressure on neighbouring countries

14 October 2014

More than nine million Syrians have been forced to leave their homes in the last few years. Now, with IS advancing in both Syria and Iraq, the situation is getting worse. “No conflict has ever seen so many deaths, so many refugees, so many internally displaced people in so little time,” said Frej Fenniche, a representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), during a hearing on 13 October organised by human rights subcommittee.

Most MEPs agreed that European countries should accept more refugees and give further support to Syria's neighbouring countries.

Opening the hearing, committee chair Elena Valenciano, a Spanish member of the S&D group, stressed the need to increase humanitarian help, as stated in the EP resolution adopted on 18 September. 

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[Jordan] The Jordan Times - Labour Ministry's Eid campaign to target illegal workers

2 October 2014

AMMAN — The Ministry of Labour will carry out an intensive inspection campaign during the Eid Al Adha holiday to eliminate labour violations.

Under the campaign, legal measures will be taken against workplaces hiring illegal workers.

The campaign follows repeated and continuing violations by businesses that hire guest workers with no valid work permits and force many Jordanians to become jobless, according to the ministry.

The ministry called on the public to report violators via its hotlines 0796580666 or 0777580666, or via its toll-free landline 080022208.

The ministry campaign will start on the second day of Eid and continue through Tuesday.

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[Jordan] EU Neighbourhood Policy news - EU-INTERPOL project to help reinforce security across Jordan

3 October 2014

The EU and INTERPOL have joined their efforts to help strengthen security across Jordan by providing frontline officers with access to INTERPOL’s global tools and services. They have launched the project Estijab (“response” in Arabic) as part of a larger EU-funded €5 million programme, in partnership with the Jordanian government, aiming at boosting the ability of Jordanian authorities to improve public security and the rule of law.

 

Project Estijab will see the expansion of access to INTERPOL’s secure global police communications system, known as I-24/7, in order to assist Jordanian authorities in identifying security threats at its borders.

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[PUBLICATION Syrian refugees] Refugee Studies Centre - Protection in Europe for refugees from Syria

There are currently more than 2.8 million registered refugees from Syria. Ninety-six percent of these refugees are hosted by neighbouring countries – Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. With the exception of Germany and a few other limited initiatives, the primary aim of the European response has been to contain the crisis in the Syrian region and to reinforce Europe’s borders.

This event marks the launch of a new RSC Policy Briefing, ‘Protection in Europe for refugees from Syria’. Report authors, Cynthia Orchard and Andrew Miller, will provide an overview of the European reaction generally, as well as brief summaries of selected countries’ responses. They argue that containment of the refugee crisis to the Syrian region is unsustainable and advocate for European countries to open their doors to refugees from the region and to expand safe and legal routes of entry.

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[Jordan]: Human Rights Watch - Palestinians Escaping Syria Turned Away

Jordan refuses entry to or forcibly deports Palestinian refugees escaping Syria, in clear breach of its international obligations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Jordan has officially banned entry to Palestinians from Syria since January 2013 and has forcibly deported over 100 who managed to enter the country since mid-2012, including women and children. 

The 44-page report, “Not Welcome: Jordan’s Treatment of Palestinians Escaping Syria,” is based on interviews with more than 30 people affected by the non-admission policy. Human Rights Watch also documented Jordan’s withdrawal of Jordanian citizenship from some Palestinians who had lived in Syria for many years and who have been detained or deported to Syria without identity documents. Jordan’s uncompromising treatment of Palestinians fleeing Syria contrasts with its treatment of Syrian nationals, at least 607,000 of whom have been accepted into the country since the beginning of the Syrian conflict. Before the March 2011 uprising began, Syria was home to at least 520,000 Palestinian refugees.

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[Jordan]: AlMonitor - Jordan admits to barring entry of Palestinian refugees from Syria

Jordan — Jordan’s leaders regularly highlight the country’s assistance to refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict. Jordan’s minister of planning and international cooperation, Ibrahim Sarif, told The New York Times that the presence of so many refugees from Syria in Jordan is equivalent to “the United States absorbing the entire population of Canada.”

[…]

At the beginning of the conflict in 2011, Jordanian authorities permitted Palestinian refugees from Syria to enter the country. However, the situation soon changed in the fall of 2012. Adam Coogle, a Human Rights Watch researcher based in Amman, explained to Al-Monitor that the organization received reports at that time of Jordanian border guards refusing to admit Palestinian refugees from Syria. When the organization first approached the Ministry of Interior with its reports, the authorities denied the practice, Coogle said.

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[Jordan]: The Daily Star- Syrian war refugees still flooding into Jordan: U.N.

The United Nations said Thursday it sees no letup in refugees fleeing war-ravaged Syria for neighboring Jordan, and appealed for funds to help the kingdom cope with the influx. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said that it expected the number of Syrian refugees in Jordan to increase by as much as 33 percent to up to 800,000 by the end of this year.

The agency said Jordan was in desperate need of $2.6 billion to care for the refugees. “We expect that the number of [Syrian] refugees will continue to increase to some 700,000-800,000 by the end of this year,” said Andrew Harper, representative of the UNHCR in Jordan. “There is a regional response plan and national response plan, in which many aspects are still being finalized ... basically $1 billion for the refugees and $1.6 billion for supporting Jordan’s hosting community.”

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[Jordan]: Care - Lives Unseen: urban Syrian refugees and Jordanian host communities three years into the Syria crisis

Cover of the report

With the Syria crisis entering its fourth year, the resources of many longer term Syrian refugees in Jordan are being depleted, while other Syrians are just arriving—often with few resources. With increasing needs, the capacities of Jordanian service providers, community-based organizations, and humanitarian actors are stretched. Setting the right programme priorities and identifying the most vulnerable households thus is now more important than ever to ensure different groups—particularly the most vulnerable Syrian men, women, girls, and boys—receive the assistance they need while awaiting return.

The present study aims to enhance all stakeholders’ understanding of the needs, vulnerabilities, and capacities of Syrian refugees and vulnerable host community members across the four urban areas in Jordan that host the largest number of refugees—Amman, Irbid, Mufraq, and Zarqa. The goal is to contribute to the growing data available by providing community views on needs, vulnerabilities, and capacities, as well as by identifying trends by comparing data with results from the two baseline studies that CARE conducted on the situation of urban refugees in Amman (2012) and in Irbid, Madaba, Mufraq, and Zarqa (2013).

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[Jordan]: UNHCR - Jordan opens a new desert camp for Syrian refugees at Azraq

Picture belonging to the same article: bu Saleh and his family survey their new surroundings in Azraq refugee camp

Azraq, which formally opened today, will be run by the Jordanian authorities with the support of UNHCR and its humanitarian partners. The camp was opened to relieve pressure on the Za'atri camp, some 50 miles to the north-west. With around 100,000 residents, Za'atri is one of the world's largest refugee camps and is running out of space.

There are currently nearly 5,000 shelters in Azraq, capable of housing up to 25,000 refugees. Their zinc and steel construction is designed to better cope with the high winds and extremes of temperature in Jordan's eastern desert compared with the tents and caravans found in Za'atri.

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[Jordan]: The Guardian - Inside a refugee camp in Jordan three years after the Syrian uprising began

Picture from the same article: a Syrian refugee stands on top of a water tank at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. Photograph: Mohammad Hannon/AP

The old man does not give his name. He does not say anything at all. Lying under a blanket on a thin mattress in the corner of a dark, prefabricated metal container that these days serves as home, he greets a visitor with a baleful stare. Then, slowly, he turns his face to the wall and pulls his red and black checked keffiyeh over his head.

His misery, shame, anger and isolation seem complete: he is beyond reach. But his tacit statement is both unmistakable and painfully eloquent. Once, not long ago in Syria, he, like so many others, had a family, a house, job, friends, a neighbourhood, a purpose. He was a man in his own right. Life made sense.

Now, inside the confines of the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp a few miles away from the Syrian border in north-west Jordan, he appears as a number, a statistic, his life a shadow of what it was. He seems to be wholly displaced – physically, geographically, socially and psychologically.

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