Major Challenges Remain In Meeting The Needs In Zaatari Camp

Three years after the largest refugee camp in the Middle East was established, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says that major challenges remain in meeting the needs of people who live there.

The Zaatari camp in Jordan was set up on 29 July 2012 as large numbers of Syrian refugees fled across the border. Today the camp is home to around 81,000 Syrians.

Ariane Rummery, spokesperson for UNHCR, says that conditions have improved since the camp began but that a great deal more needs to be done.

She said, "The prefabricated shelters have largely replaced the rows of tents, which were put up initially. But more than half of that population are children and that presents challenges on how we can continue the schooling which was so badly disrupted when they had to flee. One in every three children inside Zaatari camp is outside formal schooling."

UNHCR says that there are also around 9,500 young people in the camp, aged between 19-24, who need skills training and, like their older counterparts, need opportunities to earn a living. Just over 5 percent of 19 to 24 years old in Zaatari were at university in Syria but had to drop out due to the conflict.

More than half a million refugees live outside camps in Jordan and UNHCR says that life for them has become increasingly tough. A recent survey found 86 per cent of refugees who don't live in camps live below the Jordanian poverty line of 68 JOD (approx. US$95) per capita per month, forcing increasing numbers of people to move to camps from urban areas. The Zaatari camp is at full capacity. The number of urban refugees seeking shelter in Jordan's second camp, Azraq, increased fourfold in the first six months of this year with 3,658 people returning there from urban areas, compared to just 738 in the second half of 2014.

Ariane Rummery says that Syrian refugees in Jordan are enduring such hardships that they often resort to what the United Nations calls 'negative coping strategies'. She says that such behaviour particularly has an impact on children, such as them being taken out of school, forced to beg or forced to work.

In all, more than 4,015,000 refugees are registered in the region surrounding Syria, including some 629,000 in Jordan.
STORY: GENEVA / ZAATARI CAMP
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 28 JULY 2015 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

SHOTLIST:
1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ariane Rummery, spokesperson for UNHCR:
"It's a vibrant, bustling city and home to 81,000 people. The prefabricated shelters have largely replaced the rows of tents, which were put up initially. But more than half of that population are children and that presents challenges on how we can continue the schooling which so badly disrupted when they had to flee. One in every three children inside Zaatari camp is outside formal schooling."
4. Med shot, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Ariane Rummery, spokesperson for UNHCR:
"The large majority of refugees in Jordan, more than half a million of them, live out of camps and life for them is becoming increasingly tough. The most recent vulnerability survey found that 86 per cent of people lived below the Jordanian poverty line of about $95 per capita per month."
6. Close up, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Ariane Rummery, spokesperson for UNHCR:
"In terms of the abuses or the very risky behaviours that refugees are having to engage in because of this very terrible economic state, you're absolutely right, there is an increase and this is a pattern that we see. The technical jargon for this in the UN is 'negative coping strategies', and what that means in English is exactly things like that, pulling children out of school, it means begging, it means child labour. It's easier for children to work under the radar in Jordan, for example, and so families often are having to rely on their children to work because of their very difficult economic situation."
8. Wide shot, journalists
9. Close ups, journalist

DURATION: 01:43