Refugee camp in Jordanian desert home to 80,000 Syrian refugees
The King of Jordan has warned his country is at 'boiling point' because of the number of Syrian refugees and told the West to help before the 'dam bursts', the Daily Mail reports.
Jordan is hosting more than 600,000 of the 4.6million Syrians who have registered with the UN as refugees since the civil war broke out in the country five years ago.
But the Jordanian government says there are another one million unregistered Syrians living in the country, which has a population of 9.5million, and fear more will arrive due to the estimated 13.5million vulnerable and displaced people who remain in Syria.
Speaking ahead of a key conference on Syria being held in London this week, King Abdullah said the flood of refugees into his country had damaged its education and healthcare systems and urged Western leaders to recognise the huge strain the Syrian conflict is having on his citizens.
Al Zaatari, one of the biggest camps in Jordan near the city of Mafraq, currently hosts around 80,000 people - the same as Bath in the UK and Napa City in the U.S. - and pictures taken from a helicopter flying over the camp have emerged showing tents and other temporary homes stretching over miles of the Jordanian desert.
Jordan says a quarter of the government's budget is spent looking after refugees.
In an interview with the BBC, King Abdullah said: 'The psyche of the Jordanian people, I think it's gotten to boiling point.
“It hurt us when it comes to the educational system, our healthcare,” he added.
“Sooner or later, I think the dam is going to burst and I think this week is going to be very important for Jordanians to see, is there going to be help - not only for Syrian refugees, but for their own future as well.”
“They realise that if they don't help Jordan, it's going to be more difficult for them to deal with the refugee crisis.”
He added: “The international community, we've always stood shoulder to shoulder by your side. We're now asking for your help, you can't say no this time.
King Abdullah rejected claims from the international community that his country had left 16,000 Syrian refugees stranded in a remote desert area near its northern border.
The United Nations has warned that children and vulnerable people are among those suffering from deteriorating conditions in the area.
But the King warned that there were 'elements' of ISIS among the group and said Jordanian authorities were deploying a 'strong vetting system' to ensure extremists are not admitted into refugee camps.
Around 50-100 refugees from the area are being admitted each day, he said.
He told his international critics: 'If you want to take the moral high ground on this issue, we'll get them all to an airbase and we're more than happy to relocate them to your country, if what you're saying is there's only 16,000.'
The Syrian donors' conference will start in London tomorrow and Downing Street has urged participating countries to double the amount of money they have so far contributed to the humanitarian crisis.
Britain is the second largest bilateral donor to the Syrian refugee crisis, having committed more than £1.1billion ($1.6bn) to refugee camps in the region.
It has accepted to take in a limited number of refugees from the camps in the region, with the Prime Minister pledging to take in 20,000 by 2020.
By Christmas the UK had taken in 1,000 Syrians but the Government has been criticised for refusing to take in any of the estimated one million refugees who have already fled to Europe.
David Cameron, who insists the best way to resolve the refugee crisis is to concentrate on helping Syria's neighbours, pledged last month to press the European Union to relax rules on exports for Jordan in a bid to boost its economy.
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