“Tens of thousands of people are in need of urgent assistance in a border area between Syria and Jordan. They are living in extremely harsh conditions in a desert area known as 'the berm'. The vast majority are women and children, who are seeking sanctuary from the ongoing violence in Syria,” stated the aid agency International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday.
Medical aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) has called for the urgent medical evacuation of those who need life-saving health care, which they can provide at the Ramtha government hospital five kilometres away where they opened an emergency trauma surgery.
“The closure of the borders means that the most vulnerable victims of the conflict – those badly injured by the war – no longer have the chance to survive,” Luis Eguiluz, head of mission in Jordan for MSF, said on Wednesday.
Jordan closed the border and declared it a militarized zone after seven of its soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on June 21. It has blocked all food and medical aid from crossing the border where some 70,000 Syrians, including 30,000 children, are gathered.
Limited water supplies are permitted across the border but the situation is now so desperate that some people are returning to war-ravaged Syria, Gerry Simpson of Human Rights Watch told Al Jazeera.
"It's entirely barren desert with just rocks and sand and dust, an unbelievably hospitable environment," Pavlo Kolovos of MSF told Al Jazeera.
Temperatures in the area are hitting 50˚C.
The aid agencies are calling on the international community to do more to care for the millions of Syrian refugees who are being hosted in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey and straining those countries’ resources.
"This is not just about Jordan,” said the ICRC’s Regional Director for the Near and Middle East, Robert Mardini. “The crisis at the berm reflects an international failure to protect and help people affected by conflict and who are in desperate need. The circumstances people are living in right now are unacceptable. Only immediate and concerted international action will relieve their plight."
