Jordan Plans to Deliver Aid to Stranded Refugees by Crane
Refugees in Jordan Source: Wikimedia Commons
For months, 75,000 refugees have beenstranded in an area between Jordan and Syria known as the berm. The situation began when Jordanclosed its border to the region after a June 21 suicide attack killed seven Jordanian border guards. As a result, refugees in the berm have been isolated from aid agencies and arefacing starvation, dehydration, and other deaths related to lack of resources.
On October 10, Jordansuggested that it plans to allow regular aid drops using cranes from its border. In August, UN agencies used this method to deliver about 650 metric tons of aid to the berm.
Some agencies like Human Rights Watch havecriticized Jordan’s crackdown on the border, and they have called for Jordan to reopen its border to allow for aid flows to move into the berm and for the most vulnerable refugees to access to Jordan.
But Jordan may have reached the brink in its capacity to aid refugees. An October report from Amnesty Internationalrevealed that Jordan hosts a rate of 87 refugees for every 1,000 inhabitants of its country, second only to Lebanon at 183. The World Bankestimates that the influx of Syrian refugees has cost Jordan $2.5 billion. Each refugee alonecosts $3,750 to host per year, according to the Carnegie Endowment. Moreover, Jordan has a weak economy with a 13.8 percent unemployment rate.
The accumulation of these high economic costs underscores how far Jordan has been willing to go in accepting refugees. In addition to theover 600,000 Syrian refugees amounting to 10 percent of the population, Jordan also sheltersrefugees from Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan.
Jordan has a history as a refugee asylum. According to the Washington Institute, 60 percentof Jordan’s population are descendants of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel,. Social anthropologist and contemporary Middle East historian Géraldine Chatelard hascalled Jordan “a refugee haven,” in particular for its historical acceptance of Iraqis and Palestinians fleeing political violence.
Several factors explain Jordan’s high acceptance of refugees. One is basic geography: Jordan directly borders Israel, Iraq, and Syria, which means it’s difficult to avoid taking in people fleeing violence from those countries. Countries such as Turkey and Lebanon have also taken in large amounts of refugees due to their borders with Syria and other violence prone countries.
Others suggest that there are also political and economic motives behind Jordan’s welcoming of refugees. Jordan hasused its refugee population in the past to leverage political and economic support from the international community. Refugee acceptance may also help cement the kingdom. While the Jordanian monarchy managed to avoid the political upheaval that plagued several other Arab autocracies during the 2011 Arab Spring, the country didexperience mass protest and widespread expression of discontent.
Some argue that Jordan’s leadership uses Syrian refugees as an example to its own citizens that political uprising can have deadly consequences, reinforcing the stability of the monarchy. Alexandra Francis, a former Carnegie Endowment junior fellow,writes “The downtrodden and war-weary Syrians served as a ubiquitous reminder of the potential consequences of revolution—further suppressing the Jordanian appetite for political change.”
However, as Francis and other commentators note, this tactic is backfiring as Jordanians increasingly associate refugees with negative economic conditions. The U.N. isconcerned that resource strain can have “a negative impact on Jordanian public opinion of refugees and make preserving the country’s asylum space in the country challenging.” This factor explains the kingdom’s recent border closings.
While Jordan has made some efforts to aid refugees, like its recent crane proposal, Jordan’s sincerity is questionable. Jordan lacks comprehensive legal protection for refugees. Its constitution exclusively reserves the right to work for Jordanian citizens, and no evidence suggests that Syrians are included under its social security network, according to a 2016report by the International Labour Organization. Thepoor working conditions of Syrian refugees in Jordan and escalating economic turmoil call into question the legitimacy of the kingdom’s relief efforts and how much more support Jordan will provide going forward.