UN Steps up COVID-19 Measures at Syrian Refugee Camps in Jordan

Syrian refugees ride their bicycles in the Zaatari refugee camp near the border city of Mafraq, Jordan February 1, 2020. (Reuters)
Syrian refugees ride their bicycles in the Zaatari refugee camp near the border city of Mafraq, Jordan February 1, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN Steps up COVID-19 Measures at Syrian Refugee Camps in Jordan

Syrian refugees ride their bicycles in the Zaatari refugee camp near the border city of Mafraq, Jordan February 1, 2020. (Reuters)
Syrian refugees ride their bicycles in the Zaatari refugee camp near the border city of Mafraq, Jordan February 1, 2020. (Reuters)

The UN refugee agency is stepping up efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 among tens of thousands of Syrians in camps in Jordan after the first cases were confirmed last week, the head of the agency in the country said on Saturday.

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 last 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,” said Dominik Bartsch, the UNHCR representative in Jordan.

The refugees who tested positive for COVID-19 have been sent to an isolation area set up by the Jordanian government near the Dead Sea while families of those in contact with them have been quarantined inside the camp, the UN agency added.

Jordan’s health ministry is, meanwhile, conducting thousands of tests, restricting movement in and out of the camps and training medical staff, Bartsch said.

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.

Jordan is a major host country for Syrian refugees who have fled an almost decade-long war in their homeland. There are about 655,000 UN-registered Syrian refugees in the kingdom.



UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli forces raided four of its schools in east Jerusalem, ordering their closure.

Israel has severed all ties with the agency, known as UNRWA, and bars it from operating in its territory. It says the agency allowed itself to be infiltrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, allegations denied by UN officials.

UNRWA said police entered a training center by force on Tuesday, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the Qalandiya Training Center.

It said police and city officials ordered the closure of three other schools in east Jerusalem, two of which proceeded with the school day.

Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said police did not enter the UN buildings and that Jerusalem municipal authorities carried out the closures. He said police were deployed to protect the city workers, using “riot dispersal” means in one case where a crowd threw stones at them outside a UN facility.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, said the raids were an “unacceptable violation of United Nations privileges and immunities,” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”