ZAATARI, Jordan (Reuters) - Jordan braced on Sunday for an expected new influx of refugees from the fighting in Syria by opening a camp with 2,000 tents to accommodate them near the border.
Diplomats say around 115,000 Syrians have fled their country, mostly to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, to escape the 17-month rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.
The Jordanian authorities say around 130,000 Syrians have come to Jordan since the uprising began, but diplomats say not all of them are classified as refugees.
"We can only expect that more people will be coming across, more people who will be in need of assistance," Andrew Harper, representative for the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jordan, said at the camp's opening.
"We are seeing women and children without their husbands, without their fathers, coming across the border," Harper said at the still-empty camp, the first to become operational for Syrian refugees, near the town of Mafraq, about 10 km (six miles) from the Syrian border.
Tens of thousands of Syrians have fled to Jordan through official border points or clandestinely crossed the mostly desert frontier.
Most have found accommodation on their own, or through Islamist charities and compatriots who had fled an earlier wave of repression by Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, in the 1980s.
Syrian troops have tried to prevent refugees from crossing by mining parts of the border, and in some cases, shooting at fleeing civilians, which has prompted Jordan to send armored reinforcements to the frontier.
Diplomats say there have been several instances of Jordanian and Syrian forces exchanging fire following the killing of refugees who had attempted to cross as they were in the "no-man's land" between the two countries.
(Reporting by Mohammad al-Ramahi; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jordan-opens-camp-deal-more-syrian-refugees-181128064.html
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