(MENAFN- Jordan Times) Work on Jordan's first Syrian refugee camp began on Tuesday, with relief agencies expecting the facility to receive its first residents as early as the end of the week.
According to the UN, construction work started on a 5,000-person capacity camp in the Zatari region near the border city of Mafraq, 80km northeast of Amman, in a bid to cope with a refugee influx that has reached a pace of up to 1,000 persons per day.
"We are working to have the camp in place as soon as possible in case we see people enter in the thousands," UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Representative Andrew Harper told The Jordan Times.
Relief officials expect the tented camp, which is to be fitted with electricity and water services, to be completed by the end of the week.
The joint Jordan-UN initiative comes as the latest of a multi-phase response to the emerging humanitarian crisis, a strategy that has included extending support to host communities in the border cities of Ramtha and Mafraq and the construction of so-called transit facilities.
"The last thing we want is people living in tents in the desert, but sometimes with a refugee crisis, this is the only choice," Harper said.
The move comes less than 24 hours after a government decision paving the way for the camp's construction and amid an ongoing Syrian exodus into Jordan sparked by fresh fighting in Daraa that has led to a record 5,000 new arrivals in less than a week.
The recent mass influx has led to severe overcrowding at transit facilities - guarded housing complexes where new arrivals undergo security background checks. Release from these facilities requires a legal guarantee signed by a Jordanian national.
Unlike the transit facilities, Harper said, the Zatari camp is to serve as a residence for Syrian refugees in an effort to alleviate the growing burdens the 140,000-strong community has placed on Jordan, including housing shortages and rising food prices.
"For over a year Jordan has received Syrians with dignity and has provided them with services, but at the end of the day there are only so many people host communities can absorb," Harper said.
According to the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation (JHCO) - the semi-governmental relief agency tasked by the government to administer the facility - the camp will be jointly funded by the UNHCR and contributions by donor countries and international aid agencies.
"The quality of the services we will provide will depend on donors and the funds or in-kind assistance they provide," JHCO Secretary General Ayman Mufleh told The Jordan Times.
Government Spokesperson Samih Maaytah said the Cabinet's decision on Monday cleared the way for the UN and the JHCO to construct additional facilities, allowing for the establishment of "several camps" in the border region should the need arise.
"As with any humanitarian emergency, we have to be prepared for each and every scenario," Maaytah told The Jordan Times.
"If more Syrian refugees continue to enter the country, then we have to be prepared to open more camps."
The government and the UN have already entered the planning stages for a second camp in the northern border region, according to the JHCO.
Despite following an open-border policy with regard to displaced Syrians, Jordan has long resisted opening a refugee camp out of fears of worsening already tense ties with Damascus.
The recent refugee exodus, combined with forecasts of an additional influx of some 20,000 vulnerable Syrians by the year end, has led the government to lift its reservations, officials say.
The issue of refugees has become an emerging point of contention between Amman and Damascus, which objects to Jordan's policy of granting refuge to army defectors and political dissidents.
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