New Syrian refugee camp opens in Jordan

 New Syrian refugees crossing into Jordan will be sent directly to a new camp near the oasis town of Azraq that will open in late April, Director of the Syrian Refugee Camps Affairs Department Waddah Hmoud announced. He spoke at a press conference held jointly with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Jordan Andrew Harper, the security chief of the Mukheizen Al Gharbiyeh refugee camp Atef Btoush; and UNHCR Field Coordinator for Refugees Bernadette Castel-Hollingsworth, Jordan News agency (Petra) reported. The four officials, accompanied by representatives from donor countries, had recently toured the new refugees’ accommodation facility to check first-hand on preparations to start receiving the Syrians fleeing the conflict in their country.Hmoud said that about 1.3 million Syrians now live in Jordan, 640,000 of them are registered as refugees by the UNHCR and only 20 percent of them live in refugee camps, while the rest live in cities and towns across the Kingdom.With no end in sight to the three-year-old Syrian war, the exodus continues into Jordan and other neighbouring countries.