by Sébastien Carliez in Ruwayshid
It took almost 20 hours for Jilly Abdallah
and his friends to reach Ruwayshid, in Jordan. They fled Baghdad by bus,
early on Thursday morning, a few hours after the first bombs fell on the
Iraqi capital. Jilly, a 37-year-old Sudanese, has worked for a Baghdad
electricity company for the past 10 years. He was accompanied in his journey
to Jordan by 33 of his countrymen and women, including 12 children.
"We waited until it appeared clear that there remained no chance for peace," Jilly said, a few hours after he arrived in the camp established by the Jordan Red Crescent Society (JRCS) with support from the International Federation, 50 kilometres west from the Iraqi border to accommodate third country nationals fleeing Iraq because of the war.
"I have a visa into Jordan but no money to pay for my trip back home," Jilly explains. No matter, he was able to leave the Ruwayshid camp the next afternoon, with dozens of others, bound for Khartoum. The buses to Amman international airport were chartered by the International Office for Migrations (IOM). The UN agency also paid for their plane tickets.
Like Jilly, more than 500 foreign students, workers and their families have passed through the JRCS camp since the war started in Iraq last Thursday. They are mainly Sudanese, but also Somalis, Chadians, Egyptians, and citizens of other African nations.
Some say they are not too keen on returning to their home countries, some of which, like Sudan and Somalia, are also stricken by war. Most of them, though, left the camp after a 24-hour stay, but on Monday morning 170 people were still accommodated in the camp.
"Everybody is accepted here, regardless of their nationality," explains Dr. Muhammad Al-Hadid, the JRCS president, who has been staying in the camp for the past three days. "They can stay until they are ready to proceed to their countries."
All are sheltered in tents, families on one side of the camp, single people on the other. About 90 JRCS volunteers are working round the clock to provide people with comfort and food. Drinking water is trucked from a borehole dug a few kilometres away. Three large warehouse tents were erected respectively for registration, preparing hot meals and storing relief items required for new arrivals.
Despite a sunny weather during the day, temperatures in this inhospitable, windy Jordanian desert drop to almost zero degrees Celsius at night. Kerosene heaters and extra blankets were distributed from day one.
"Several children, however, have caught a cold since they arrived in the camp, if not during the journey from Baghdad," says a JRCS doctor, who has been providing basic care services night and day in a tent that serves as a field clinic. More than 100 patients have been treated over the past 48 hours in the facility, set up in collaboration with the Jordan Medical Association. Some cases have been referred to the hospital in the nearby village of Ruwayshid.
Attempts are being made to retain a sense of normality - children play football with volunteers in the middle of the camp, while a tent has been turned into a tentative school.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has installed four tracing tents in the camp, where people can make phone calls to inform their relatives about their whereabouts. "Ninety per cent of the callers got somebody on the line," says ICRC's Bernard Betrancourt.
So far, no Iraqi refugees have come into neighbouring Jordan. If they do cross the border in the coming days or weeks, they will be accommodated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in a camp located five kilometres down the road.
In case of a major influx of refugees, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement will also be able to give them a hand. With support from the Federation, the Jordan Red Crescent has enough relief stocks to assist 25,000 people.
The International Federation and the UNHCR signed on 21 March a cooperation agreement to coordinate their respective efforts to bring assistance to populations who may be affected across the Middle East by the war on Iraq.
Meanwhile, the existing cooperation between the Federation and the Arab League was formalised today with the signing in Cairo of an historic agreement on humanitarian assistance.
"Thanks to the good preparedness work of the Red Crescent in Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Syria and Turkey, we have been able to launch an appeal for 111 million Swiss francs to assist as many as 305,000 people in the event of any major refugee crisis resulting from the present conflict," said the Federation's Secretary General, Didier Cherpitel, "This agreement will help our efforts to provide even greater support to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in the member countries of the Arab League."