Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Jordan has repealed free medical treatment to the country's 1.3 million Syrian refugees, it has emerged, at a time that the country also stands accused of forcibly deporting Syrian families back into the war.

The Jordanian government, already in debt from hosting refugees from neighbouring Syria, is no longer able to cope with the additional burdens on its healthcare system, having already spent £19 million since the war began four years ago, officials told the Times newspaper.

Only a portion of the estimated 1.3 million refugees that have fled to Jordan are living in camps managed by the United Nations, with tens of thousands of families are living in rented accommodation in the country's cities.

With refugees prohibited from working in the country, humanitarian experts have voiced concerns about how Syrians are going to have access to proper healthcare.

As the country struggles to manage domestic security and economic concerns that arise from being the neighbour of a country at war, it has come under increasing fire from human rights NGOs, for changes in its policy towards Syrians seeking asylum and refuge.

Earlier this week a Human Rights Watch report found that Jordanian authorities have forcibly deported vulnerable Syrian refugees back to Syria, include wounded men and unaccompanied children.

Refugee deportations violate the international law principle of non-refoulement, which forbids governments from returning people to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened.

Those deported include a group of 12 Syrian refugees who had been receiving treatment at a rehabilitation center in northern Jordan as well as four refugees, three of them children, whom Jordanian border police intercepted near the Syrian border.

“Jordan is carrying a heavy refugee burden, but it should not be in the business of sending any refugees back to a conflict zone where their lives are threatened, much less children and wounded men who can’t even walk,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “Such deportations an environment of fear that affects all refugees.”

On September 16, Jordanian authorities sent back the 12 Syrians, most of whom had refugee certificates, who had been receiving treatment at Dar al-Karama rehabilitation center in the northern city of al-Ramtha. A Syrian refugee, who used the pseudonym Saeed and who knew the deportees, and a humanitarian worker told Human Rights Watch that Jordanian police raided and forcibly closed the center, then took away the men being treated there and deported them.

Saeed said that the group included six paralyzed men and six wounded people – including two children – who require regular care. All went to private homes in the Syrian city of Daraa city on September 16, but these homes do not have the capacity or resources to provide them with adequate care, he said. Al Jazeera conducted avideotaped interview with one of the wounded deportees in Daraa on September 20.

Human Rights Watch spoke by phone with one of the deported refugees, a 17-year-old who requires further medical treatment for an eye injury. He told Human Rights Watch that authorities did not tell the 12 the reason for their deportation or allow them to contact UNHCR. He is staying with relatives but hopes to re-enter Jordan to reunite with his mother and other family members.

A Jordanian government spokesperson denied that Jordan deported the refugees, stating that they had been “relocated in other hospitals to get the proper treatment by practicing doctors,” but the spokesperson did not say where.

The Daraa governorate has been the site of fierce clashes between the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front, Jabhat al-Nusra, Syrian armed forces, and other armed groups for more than three years.

“As fighting in southern Syria intensifies, now is not the time for Jordan to harden its stance toward refugees who have nowhere else to flee,” Houry said. “Jordan certainly will want to secure its border, but it should not be turning its back on its neighbours.

*Telegraph