Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The sprawling Azraq refugee camp east of Amman was designed with the benefit of hindsight.

Before it opened in 2014, most Syrian refugees who arrived in Jordan ended up in chaotic situations, either at the densely packed Zaatari camp or in informal urban arrangements. But the Azraq camp’s ordered design and planned construction promised something better.

Today, Syrian refugees who arrive in Jordan are taken to the camp, where they live in bare-bone homes and receive food and medical care.

“It’s another life,” said Abdullah Ahmad, a 32-year-old who arrived just days ago after fleeing Islamic State-held territory near Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. “We hadn’t even tasted the joys of life before we arrived here.”

Yet some visitors to the camp are likely to be struck by something else. Despite its size, tight security and the obvious amounts of money that have gone into building it, large parts of Azraq are essentially empty. According to the latest United Nations figures, fewer than 20,000 refugees live in the camp, even though it was designed to hold up to 100,000. Of Azraq’s four residential “villages,” just two are occupied. Another planned village has not been constructed yet.

In a way, it’s hindsight that caused the problem.

When Azraq was proposed, it was based on the assumption that the flow of Syrians would continue in the same tumultuous way that created the need for the Zaatari camp.

It did not.

That doesn’t mean fewer Syrians are trying to reach Jordan. While Azraq sits partly empty, tens of thousands of refugees sit on the border in a no-man’s land known as “the Berm,” a term for the dusty, desolate patch of land barely inside Jordanian territory.

Jordanian authorities say these people are leaving Islamic State-controlled territory and need stringent security checks before they can enter Jordan.

Hala Shamlawi, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jordan, one of the few groups with consistent access to the area, said there have been several waves of arrivals since September 2013 and that it is unclear how long some have been there. Recent arrivals to Azraq describe having to wait for as long as five months.

Jordan’s refusal to take in these refugees may also be a sign of a broader problem. Long a country that has been willing to accept large numbers of refugees from the Syrian war, Jordan may finally be reaching its limit. Almost 700,000 Syrians are registered as refugees in Jordan, but the government estimates the total number in the country at considerably more than 1 million.

*Washington Post