• Crisis Severity ?
    2.8
    0 Very low
    Very high 5
  • Impact ?
    2.7
    0 Very low
    Very high 5
  • Humanitarian Conditions ?
    3.1
    0 Very low
    Very high 5
  • Complexity ?
    2.3
    0 Very low
    Very high 5
  • Access Constraints ?
    2.0
    No constraints
    Extreme constraints

Key figures

  • 1,319,000 People displaced [?]
  • 777,000 People in Need [?]

Overview

04/07/2022

Jordan hosted more than 672,000 registered Syrian refugees, but the actual total is estimated at around 1.3 million when those not registered are taken into account. Over 19,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria were also registered in Jordan. Around 90% of the Syrian refugees live outside the camps in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas of Amman, Irbid, Mafraq, and Zarqa. Around 130,000 Syrian refugees live in Azraq, Emirates Jordanian Camps, and Za’atari. ?

Around 80% of the Syrian refugees outside the camps live below the poverty line. Most Syrian families are relying on humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs. Before the pandemic, Syrian refugees living outside of camps spent more than two-thirds of their monthly household budget on shelter, leaving few resources for food, health, or education. They often resorted to negative coping mechanisms such as cutting meals, child labour, or early marriage. Urban refugees and host communities faced increased difficulties accessing basic services and earning an income because of the COVID-19 impact on wages and employment opportunities. ?

 

Latest Developments

29/03/2023

12 years since the onset of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011, living conditions for the nearly 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Jordan remain precarious. More than half of these refugees live in poverty, and one fifth are food-insecure. In the last quarter of 2022, more than 80% of refugee households were in debt, with most of them borrowing money from friends and neighbours to cover basic needs, such as food and rent. Also in 2022, around 90% of refugee households used at least one negative coping mechanism, such as reducing non-food expenses and withdrawing children from school. As at January 2023, around 80% of refugees lived outside camps in poor housing, and shelters in camps remained inadequate and unsafe. In the last three months of 2022, around 34% of refugee households had difficulty in paying rent, and 26% received eviction notices. Livelihoods, food security, shelter, and protection assistance are some of the key priorities for Syrian refugees in Jordan?.

Key Priorities

21/12/2021

Livelihood: Access to employment remains low (135,000 work permits issued) and restricted in terms of sectors. Only 5% of work permits were assigned to women. The perception that work permits will impact assistance, lack of civil documents, stigma, and transportation and childcare arrangements is limiting refugees’ access to work ?.

Food Security: About 21% of Syrian refugee households are food-insecure, and 67% are vulnerable to food insecurity. COVID-19 compounded their economic vulnerabilities and led to an increase in the number of people adopting negative coping mechanisms ?.

Shelter: Refugees living outside of camps spend a large portion of their income on expensive, unsafe accommodation. Refugees in camps often occupy hazardous, inadequate, or overcrowded shelters ?.

Protection: Women and girls face multiple forms of gender-based violence in the Azraq refugee camp (hosting 37,700 refugees). The most significant threats include sexual harassment and assault, emotional and verbal abuse, domestic violence, and early marriage. Violence levels and intensity have notably increased since the onset of COVID-19 ?.