São Paulo – The Zaatari refugee camp, in Jordan, currently holds 81,000 Syrians, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released, on the place’s third birthday, this week, that it is overcrowded. According to the UN office, living conditions for the more than half million refugees that live in Jordan’s urban areas are getting harder, which has the consequence of increasing the numbers in the camps, such as Zaatari, where there are more aid.
UNHCR points out that the last research showed that 86% of urban refugees live below the poverty line. “With Zaatari’s overcrowding, the number of refugees in search of shelter in Jordan’s second camp, Azraq, increased in the first six months of the year”, said the UNHCR’s spokesperson, Adrian Edwards. In the first half of the year, almost four thousand people returned to Azraq coming from urban areas.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
