Jordan Humanitarian Fund - Annual Report 2017

2017 IN REVIEW

HUMANITARIAN CONTEXT

Jordan

Since the onset of the crisis over a million Syrians have fled to Jordan, 655,624 of which are registered refugees, constituting 10 per cent of the total population in Jordan. Of these, 516,072 (79%) live in host communities, while the remaining 139,552 (21%) live in camps, principally Za’atari and Azraq.
Over six years of successive waves of increasing refugee influxes have placed considerable strain on social, economic, institutional and natural resource systems throughout Jordan. With conditions in Syria far from suitable for any form os supported return

As of December 2017, some 50,000 Syrians continue to be stranded at the berm of Jordan’s north-eastern border with Syria in Rukban. A large proportion of the population is vulnerable with limited or no assets, and the vast majority are women and children. Since an attack on Jordan;s border in June 2016 the northern border of Jordasn has been sealed and the area around Rukban designated a military zone this has rendered humanitarian access to this population extremely challenging. While the UN has been granted permission to deliver humanitarian assistance to this population, since the attack in 2016 it has only been possible to deliver two full rounds of humanitarian assistance With the rapidly evolving situation in Syria and shifts in territorial control in Syria in 2017, the Government of Jordan are now only permitting the provision of water and limited health services, insisting that access is now possible from within Syria and that all future deliveries of humanitarian assistance need to be made from Damascus.

Southern Syria

In south-western Syria, an estimated 750,000 people are in need, including over 350,000 long-term IDPs. Despite the establishment of the De-Escalation Area in the south-west in July 2017, intermittent and short-term clashes between the Government of Syria (GoS) forces and armed opposition groups (AOGs) continued to occur with low level new displacements reported. While the majority of those displaced are able to find refuge with host families, shelter are often extremely overcrowded and lacking basic amenities. The influx of IDPs continued to place considerable additional strain on host communities which had already been deeply impacted by protracted conflict.

Under UNSC resolution 2165 and its subsequent extensions, the UN and its implementing partners have continued to deliver humanitarian aid and services to southern Syria. On 19 December, the UN Security Council Resolution 2393 was adopted renewing the provisions of UNSCR 2165 for an additional 12 months until 10 January 2019. The passage of UNSCR 2393 enables the continuation of cross-border operations for the duration of 2018. Within six months of the adoption of the resolution, the UN will conduct an independent review of the UN humanitarian cross-border operations, including recommendations on how to further strengthen the UN monitoring mechanism, taking into account the views of relevant parties including the Syrian authorities, the relevant neighboring counties of Syria and the UN humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners.