• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Refugees

Displaced Syrian Families Stranded Near Jordan Border

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
07/02/18
in Refugees
A Syrian refugee family in Jordan

A Syrian family walk past tents at the Zaatari camp near the northern Jordanian city of Mafraq on 12 August, 2012. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

After fleeing regime bombardment on southern Syria, Ayman al-Homsi and his pregnant wife saw their escape come to an abrupt halt in a parched field near the closed Jordanian border.

With nowhere else to go, they and dozens of other families have set up camp in the dry grass on the edge of Daraa province, just a dozen metres (yards) away from the frontier.

“If a woman has to give birth now, where are we supposed to take her? We have nothing here to help her,” said 25-year-old Homsi. “There aren’t even the basics. There’s no water, no food, nothing to protect people from the sun.”

Some 270,000 people have fled a two-week regime offensive on rebels in the Syria’s southern province of Daraa bordering Jordan, the United Nations says. They include an estimated 70,000 who headed south to the Jordanian frontier — only to find it closed.

“We only just managed to save ourselves from the rubble, with our women and children,” Homsi said.

The young man — now twice displaced after he fled the central province of Homs earlier in Syria’s seven-year war — had hoped to find shelter in neighbouring Jordan. But Amman has said its frontier, which has been closed since 2016, will remain so to any more Syrians fleeing the conflict.

Jordan hosts 650,000 Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations, but says the true figure is close to double that.

Russian-Syrian forces are attacking civilians in Syria's southwestern Daraa province. Israel sends humanitarian aid but, like Jordan, isn't letting in refugees trying to escape for their lives. https://t.co/xiQYRoSuva pic.twitter.com/UEm101UlUG

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) June 30, 2018

‘Stale Bread’

“We ask that people be able to enter Jordan for the safety of the women and the children,” Homsi said.

More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced by Syria’s civil war since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.

At the impromptu camp near the Jordanian border, fleeing families now live in their vehicles or under canvas set up in haste. Border guards watch on from the top of a hill, while women and small children sit in the shade outside a tent in the plain below.

One family has set up camp in a mini-van, its doors swung open to let air in and stave off the mid-summer heat. Another appears to be living out of a refrigeration truck.

“There are pregnant women and elderly women with us. We have old people and children,” says Homsi. “If a woman needs to go to the bathroom, there’s no bathroom.”

In a statement, Amnesty International urged Jordan to reopen its border which it said was the “only gateway to safety” for the stranded civilians.

“Daraa residents are effectively trapped — many of those who are displaced are living in makeshift tents in the searing heat with insufficient food, water or medical care, and with the constant fear of being exposed to attacks at any given point,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty’s Middle East research director

Amina al-Khazaela, a Jordanian woman who lived in the Daraa countryside after marrying a Syrian, begged Jordan for help.

“We have no homes, no doors for shelter. We’re staying on the ground,” said the 48-year-old, who lost a son in the recent violence. “There’s no water for us to wash our faces or hands. We’ve been searching all over for food. We’re eating stale bread. We break stale bread and eat it.”

Matter of Life and Death: Healthcare Costs Skyrocket for Syrian Refugees in Jordan

Share1Tweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Chinese President Xi Jinping
World

China Announces ‘Strategic Partnership’ With Syria

by Staff Writer
September 22, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016
Refugees

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

by Staff Writer
March 8, 2023
Syrian rescuers and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building, in the rebel-held northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province on the border with Turkey, early on February 6, 2023. Syrian rescuers (White Helmets) and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building
World

Quake Kills Over 1,200 Across Turkey, Syria

by Staff Writer
February 6, 2023
Bashar Assad
Middle East

Syria Frees 60 Prisoners in Presidential Amnesty: Monitor

by Staff Writer
May 3, 2022
Israeli persecution of Palestinians
Middle East

Jordan Summons Israeli Envoy Over Jerusalem Violence

by Staff Writer
April 18, 2022
Ukraine war
Opinion

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis and the Hierarchies of Western Compassion

by Tazreena Sajjad
April 20, 2022
Next Post
Student in a classroom

Families of Special Needs Students Raise Neglect Allegations Against Virginia Beach Schools

People protesting in Poland

Poland to Remove 27 Supreme Court Justices Despite EU Legal Action

Recommended

Health care workers in Richmond, Texas. Photo: AFP

US Healthcare Industry Top Target of Cyber Attacks: Report

September 29, 2023
Joe Biden

The ‘Polycrisis’ Challenge: Biden’s Vision for Global Problem-Solving

September 26, 2023
Air France flights

Niger Bans French Aircraft From Its Airspace: Aviation Authority 

September 25, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China Announces ‘Strategic Partnership’ With Syria

September 22, 2023
Man holding up a colored LGBT flag

France Sets Up Embassy Fund to Defend LGBTQ Rights

September 19, 2023
US Authorities Seize Artworks Allegedly Stolen by Nazis

US Authorities Seize Artworks Allegedly Stolen by Nazis

September 19, 2023

Opinion

Joe Biden

The ‘Polycrisis’ Challenge: Biden’s Vision for Global Problem-Solving

September 26, 2023
Pro-Trump protester in front of Capitol Hill.

The Ominous (and Irresponsible) Chatter of a Civil War 

September 4, 2023
A bamboo-based design raises family homes safely above water levels to cope with raising water levels in Bangladesh.

The West Owes Climate Refugees Reparations Now

August 14, 2023
President Donald Trump in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House.

Boxing Day Comes to South Florida

July 5, 2023
‘Deaths of Despair:’ Why Are US Suicides on the Rise?

An Inspired Choice to Lead the CDC

June 13, 2023
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on November 19, 2022.

Florida Man Channels Benito Mussolini

June 13, 2023
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post