Jordan celebrates World Refugee Day on Sunday, 1st, final add

The ministry said that Jordan is one of the first countries to include refugees in its plans to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that it has updated the Jordanian response plan to the Syrian crisis for the current year to include projects targeting Syrian refugees and host communities and building institutional capacities, in addition to projects responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, which have been updated and developed in line with responding to the pandemic with a participatory effort between representatives of ministries, relevant government institutions, United Nations organizations, donor countries and non-governmental organizations

The ministry added that the government has made additional efforts to continue providing health and educational services to Syrian refugees in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, by receiving patients in public hospitals and continuing education for Syrian children through various platforms.

It pointed out that the pandemic imposed many challenges on Jordan. Moreover, the sudden and noticeable increase in population density resulting from the Syrian crisis also affects the Kingdom’s ability to maintain costs and living standards for its people, as well as its ability to maintain access to services provided in the areas of health, education, municipal services, and others. All of this negatively affected the development gains that Jordan achieved during the past years, as the public debt has increased.

The ministry further added that Jordan is one of the first countries that gave the vaccine to residents, including refugees, as the number of Syrian refugees present on the territory of the Kingdom is close to 1,367 million, including about 127,000 are residing in camps.

“While the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Global Compact on Refugees provide the legal framework and tools to respond to situations of displacement, we need much greater political will to tackle the persecution and conflict that is forcing people to flee in the first place,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a UNHCR report.

UNHCR statistics show that by the end of 2020, there were 20.7 million refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR, 5.7 million Palestinian refugees and 3.9 million Venezuelans who were displaced outside the country, in addition to 48 million people displaced within their countries and 4.1 million asylum seekers.

These figures indicate that despite the pandemic and calls for a global ceasefire, conflicts have continued to chase and drive people from their homes and that at the peak of the pandemic in 2020, more than 160 countries closed their borders and 99 of them did not grant any exception to people seeking protection but with improvement Level of measures such as medical tests, vaccination, etc. more countries are finding ways to ensure access to asylum while trying to stop the spread of the pandemic

Source: Jordan News Agency

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