Rioters cut refugees’ aid access

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordanian demonstrators restricted access to the region’s largest camp of Syrian refugees for several hours on Saturday, delaying water delivery, after a riot in the camp injured 10 Jordanian security officers, one of them critically, officials said.

Kilian Kleinschmidt of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who is the director of the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border, said Saturday afternoon that the situation was tense but under control after hours of stone-throwing on Friday night.

Kleinschmidt said that aid workers were limiting their work to essential services in the camp of more than 120,000, and that the tankers that normally delivered almost 925,000 gallons of water each day were either impeded from entering or refused to do so on Saturday morning.

By 2 p.m., water delivery had resumed, Kleinschmidt said in a telephone interview. “We’re getting in somehow, but it’s tricky,” he said. “People have enough food, so that’s not a problem. We have emergency health services. That’s OK. But we have suspended vaccinations - anything we don’t absolutely need now, now, now.”

Demonstrations involving stone-throwing protesters have become a near-daily occurrence in Zaatari, with the hundreds of Jordanian police officers deployed there occasionally using tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Kleinschmidt said Friday’s demonstration, which was far more severe, began when some refugees were arrested as they tried to leave the camp without permission. The dispute escalated after a female refugee said an officer had tried to rape her.

Anmar Hmoud, who is overseeing the nearly 500,000 Syrian refugees estimated to be in Jordan for its prime minister, said the critically wounded officer was heading into surgery on Saturday morning in Amman. The officer had been hit in the head with a large rock, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation. In addition to the 10 Jordanian security officers, several refugees were injured.

Local Jordanian residents blocked the roads leading to Zaatari on Saturday morning in protest, and drivers of the water tankers refused to enter the camp for several hours. “They just wanted to show solidarity,” Hmoud said.

Front Section, Pages 7 on 04/21/2013

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