Jordan’s King Abdullah says new crisis overshadows plight of existing refugees

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Jordan’s King Abdullah on Wednesday cautioned against wars in Gaza and elsewhere distracting from providing international assistance to the large numbers of refugees already in the region.

“As serious crises compete for international attention, the plight of refugees and their host countries has taken a back seat,” the monarch said.

His remarks reflect the reliance of Jordan – a country with a per capita income of $4,300 – on outside funding, with its economy in a decade-long stagnation. The latest Hamas-Israel war has particularly affected tourism, a key foreign currency earner, compounding pressures on living standards.

“With no clear long-term commitments in flexible international funding, the vulnerability of refugees and Jordanian host communities will grow even more precarious,” he said in a keynote speech to the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, a United Nations event.

International powers can “ill afford” the consequences of this lapse, he said, adding that aid for Syrian and Palestinian refugees in the kingdom has been waning.

“With all eyes on Gaza,” the king said, international powers “must recognise … that global crises demand long-term responsibility-sharing.”

The kingdom depends on western aid, particularly from the US, which is also the main donor for Syrian and Palestinian refugees in the country.

Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, the second Arab country after Egypt to do so. The three countries are the top three recipients of US aid.

About 670,000 Syrian refugees are registered with the United Nations in Jordan, as well as two million Palestinian refugees. Many of the Palestinian refugees have Jordanian citizenship and the kingdom closed its border to Syrians fleeing their country in 2014.

A large proportion of the billions of dollars in aid for Syrian refugees in Jordan in the past 14 years has gone to host communities in Jordan, aid officials in the kingdom say.

Grants pay for infrastructure in Jordanian urban centres and rural areas where refugees live. Germany, for example, pays for the salaries of Jordanian teachers who give afternoon classes to refugees.