High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi visited on Monday Jordan following reports about a spiraling number of COVID-19 cases among tens of thousands of Syrians in camps in the country.
The UNHCR confirmed three cases in the country’s largest camp for Syrian refugees, Zaatari, near the border with Syria, and two cases in a smaller camp, Azraq.
The infections in the two camps that house a total of around 120,000 refugees were the first confirmed cases since the pandemic was first reported in the kingdom in March.
“The developments this week have obviously been a worrying situation for all, but especially for refugees living in the camps. Crowded spaces and cramped living conditions make social distancing difficult,” Dominik Bartsch, the UNHCR representative in Jordan, told Reuters.
There are about 655,000 UN-registered Syrian refugees in the kingdom.
The infections in the camps come at a time when COVID-19 cases been rising sharply in the country as a whole, since the start of the month.
A total of 214 COVID-19 cases and two fatalities were recorded in the kingdom on Monday, according to Health Minister Saad Jaber.
The government took new measures this week to safeguard the health of people as it eschews resorting to blanket curfews with hopes to reduce the number of infections.
Jaber said the lives of Jordanians was affected by recklessness as some citizens threw wedding parties and held gatherings without respecting precautionary measures.
Prayers in churches and mosques will be suspended across the country for two weeks.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Tayseer Nuaimi said Monday that students will begin remote schooling for two weeks starting Thursday.