RUWEISHED, Jordan, 27 March 2003 — Despite the mobilization of humanitarian agencies to host Iraqis fleeing the US-led war that began a week ago, not a single refugee has made it to neighboring Jordan. The small town of Ruweished, set on a patch of desert prone to heavy sandstorms near the Jordan-Iraqi border, has been host instead to hordes of journalists waiting for the missing refugees.
And about 600 third-country nationals transited through one of two camps set up a week ago 60 kilometers from the border, of whom less than 200 people remained yesterday.
But a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was too early to conclude Iraqis would not seek to escape the US-British bombardment and invasion of their country since March 20. “There have been reports in the last week that there were between 50,000 and half a million internally displaced Iraqis,” said Peter Kessler.
“A great number of them have gathered near the Iranian border and 14 arrived in Syria last Sunday,” he said. “It is too early to say that refugee movement won’t happen in Jordan.”
He pointed to the perilous traveling conditions inside Iraq, where the US military has advised Iraqis to stay at home or off main roads, and the Iraqis’ poor financial state after 13 years of UN sanctions.
Truck drivers crossing into Jordan told AFP they saw dozens of charred cars on the roadside along the 500-kilometer route from Baghdad to the Al-Karameh border post. The fare, meanwhile, has shot up to as much as $1,000 a seat.
And a Lebanese woman transiting through Jordan told humanitarian workers that her Iraqi husband and children had been prevented by Iraqi authorities from leaving the country because they did not have exit permits. The UNHCR set up a camp 65 kilometers from Al-Karameh crossing last week to accommodate up to 35,000 Iraqi refugees. Some 400 tents, for four to five people each, have been installed so far.
The camp is co-managed with Jordan’s Hashemite Charitable Organization. The UN children’s fund UNICEF said it has mobilized teachers and resources for Iraqi refugee children. But the UNHCR tents have remained empty, while a good two-third of the tents at a Red Crescent camp were brought down Wednesday to prevent a violent sandstorm from uprooting them after 19 tents flew off last night. A three-year-old Palestinian girl at the camp had to be hospitalized as she suffered from respiratory problems following the sandstorm.
In another development, a seven-truck convoy of Kuwaiti food aid arrived yesterday in the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, whose people are short of supplies after days of fighting that ended with US and British forces taking control.
The US Navy said, meanwhile, that mine sweepers had cleared a channel to Umm Qasr that would allow aid ships to arrive soon. Three trucks of food, three of water and one of mixed supplies drove in from neighboring Kuwait after a heavy sandstorm forced organizers to scale back original plans to send 30 trucks.
E.J. Russell, a US government official working with the Kuwaiti government, said the main need in Iraq was for food and water. “It’s not an urgent, urgent need, but there is a need and if we get in then perhaps it won’t become urgent,” she said. A US military police escort accompanied the Kuwaiti convoy.
“Normally we wouldn’t get involved in this at all, but because of the security situation we have to,” said US Army Maj. James Brown. The aid will be handed over to US Marines in Umm Qasr.
