AMMAN, 23 March 2003 - Ruweished is still a heavily guarded military zone that has yet to receive any Iraqi refugees from across the Iraqi-Jordanian border.
More checkpoints have been set up with more detailed paper work required to cross. The military at the border prevents anyone from entering Baghdad but has made an exception to Iraqis, particularly commercial truck drivers traveling in and out of the border for business purposes.
The border is closed to the press unless accompanied by a representative from the Jordanian Ministry of Information. And that happens in large groups, a couple of times a day.
At the Shallaan refugee camp in Ruweished, members of the world media clearly outnumber actual refugees. The refugee camp has the capacity to cater to 10,000 people. Interestingly enough since the start of the war, over 550 Iraqis crossed the border back into Iraq, some in the hope of participating in the war.
The refugee camp is filled with workers from the Jordanian Red Crescent, the International Red Cross and the World Food Program and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of them seem to agree that the likelihood of a major influx of Iraqi refugees is pretty slim at this point.
However, they expected the heavy bombardment of Baghdad to increase the influx of third country refugees to Jordan, where an American and a Japanese arrived overnight.
"So far no Iraqi refugee has arrived in Jordan but tents are being prepared and we are receiving more funding to carry on our operations," said UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler.
Jordan has been denying access to Iraqis except those with residence permits or visas for third countries, or for cases needing urgent medical treatment.
But both Kessler and International Organization for Migration spokesman Christopher Lom said the number of third country nationals was rising.
"Since Thursday we've seen that the flow of people coming is actually growing and now that the heavy bombing of Baghdad has started, the number is going to increase," Lom said.
"As of this morning there are 450 people, mostly Sudanese nationals, in the camp which we set up near the border town of Ruweished for third country nationals fleeing Iraq.
"One problem is that we lack funds and the other is that third country nationals, such as the Sudanese who refuse to go home, cannot remain indefinitely in the camps."
Lom said that to the surprise of officials at the Al-Karameh border crossing, "an American and a Japanese, who apparently worked in Iraq, were among those who arrived during the night." They had traveled straight on to Amman but other arrivals included Chadians, Djiboutians, Egyptians, Eritreans, Malians, Sudanese, Somalis and Yemenis.
Upon their arrival, the refugees are given water, food and undergo a basic medical checkup to see if they are fit to be repatriated to their countries. After being processed 147 Sudanese were bussed to Amman where they were put on a specially chartered plane to Khartoum at a cost of $40,000, Lom said, while 160 others have refused to return home for security reasons.
A group of Egyptian nationals who worked in Iraq were also bussed overnight to the southern Jordanian port of Aqaba where they were to catch a ferry boat to Egypt's Red Sea port of Nuweibeh, he added.
The IOM officials said the camp still lacked some amenities. "We have tents up, water, but no electricity yet in the camp and we are frantically working to get that in. We are also thinking of setting up rub-hole tents at the border to process quickly people arriving or departing," he said. "At the moment money is pretty tight and if our worst case scenario happens, that is if 70,000 third country nationals arrive in Jordan we will need $26 million. I'm skeptical we will get that much."
UN aid agencies and relief organizations have also begun assessing the humanitarian cost of the action against Iraq, with some speaking of a wave of "terror" gripping the civilian population. "Obviously it was a very tense night for everyone, there was a lot of damage and the children are very upset and crying," Geoffrey Keele, UNICEF spokesman in Amman, told reporters after speaking to local staff inside Iraq. "There is a lot of terror."
Local Iraqi staff working for the United Nations Children's Fund have begun touring institutions set up since the 1991 Gulf War that cater for children who have been orphaned, abandoned or have severe disabilities, he said. Keele said the teams are now assessing the situation across the country, providing counseling to children, as well as other services to identify those suffering from trauma.
Before UN agencies were ordered out of Iraq, UNICEF stockpiled supplies for 4,000 affected children that could last up to a month, including "recreational and educational kits" necessary for their well-being, he added. "During the 1991 Gulf war a lot of children in such institutions died because they were not getting the food they needed. We are delivering the supplies so that we don't have a repeat of 1991," he said. Keele also insisted that recreational kits for children at this time "might sound trivial but they are essential in order to give the children a sense of normalcy".
The International Committee of the Red Cross was also busy on the ground in Iraq assessing the damage of the war, Moin Qassis, the ICRC spokesman in Amman, told reporters. "Our teams are visiting hospitals in Baghdad, Basra and Arbil to provide assistance, including the distribution of water units," he said. But food distribution in Iraq continues to be a nightmare for UN agencies, who are hoping the UN Security Council will take immediate action to revive the oil-for-food program which was suspended at the start of the war.
"Our main concern is for Iraq where we have 800 local staff. Our warehouses are almost empty and supplies have been unable to reach northern Iraq because the border with Turkey is closed," World Food Program spokesman Khaled Mansur said. "Now our only hope is that the supplies which Iraqi families have made for six weeks will be sufficient," he said. "Even before the war started most Iraqis had already been heavily dependent on monthly food rations and the situation is unlikely to get better in the coming weeks."
Veronique Taveau, spokeswoman for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (UNHCI) Ramiro Lopes da Silva, says there is deep concern about "internally displaced persons who have fled from Kirkuk to Arbil and Sulaymaniyah" in north Iraq. "It is possible that food and electricity may become a problem if distribution and services are interrupted," she said. Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, insisted in a statement that "even wars have rule", and called on the warring parties to guarantee access and security for humanitarian teams.
- With input from Agencies
