Jordan opens second camp for Syrian refugees

The influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan prompted the U.N. refugee agency to open a second camp as an official warned the crisis had hit a "breaking point." The desert Mrajeeb al-Fhood camp, 23 miles from the Syrian border, received more than 100 Syrians its first day and will initially hold about 4,500 to 5,000 refugees, with plans to increase its size to accommodate about 25,000, Andrew Harper, the U.N. refugee agency representative in Jordan, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's been built to a much higher standard" than the packed Zaatari camp 50 miles northeast of Amman, which was intended for 50,000 refugees but hosts more than twice that number, Harper said. Riots and protests have erupted at the crowded Zaatari camp, which has grown to become equivalent in population to Jordan's sixth-largest city, after the far-northwest city of Ar Ramtha, a United Press International calculation indicates. The Times said Zaatari has become notorious for its harsh conditions, including crime and drugs. Some refugees returned to Syria, preferring to risk the perils of war than stay at Zaatari, run by Jordan and the U.N. refugee agency. "We would rather die in Syria than live here," several men told the Times in January. Mrajeeb al-Fhood -- funded by the United Arab Emirates and run by its Red Crescent Society -- is meant to ease pressures on Zaatari, Harper said. "It's a welcome step to accommodate refugees," he said. "But we have to build other camps. ... The support has not matched the massive influx." It would likely take two months before his agency, officially known as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, can open a third camp, Harper told the Times. The agency is currently building roads and drilling wells for a third camp. More than 1.3 million Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, with the number likely to top 4 million in the next eight months, the U.N. refugee agency said. The agency pleaded in December for $1 billion to care for the refugees pouring out of Syria at a rate of 2,000 to 3,000 daily. But it has received only $300 million, U.N. Syria Regional Refugee Coordinator Panos Moumtzis told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland. "There is an acute shortfall of $700 million," he said Tuesday. "We have reached a point where we feel we are at a breaking point." He defined that as when the agency has to start cutting humanitarian aid and having to decide who gets aid and who doesn't. Moumtzis warned the shortfall could also put women and children at risk of sexual exploitation as they try to provide for their struggling families