US must step in to provide for Syria’s Rukban camp, Amnesty International says

A leading human rights group is urging the United States to provide humanitarian aid to the besieged and isolated Rukban refugee camp bordering Syria and Jordan, with American forces reportedly being responsible due to their de-facto control of the area.

In a report by the rights group, Amnesty International, it called on the US government to ensure that residents of the Rukban refugee camp on Syria’s border with Jordan and Iraq have access to essential supplies such as sufficient food, clean water and healthcare, insisting that Washington has an obligation under international human rights law to do so.

The camp – largely populated by Syrians who fled to the area in the deserts of south-eastern Syria a decade ago to escape the violence inflicted by Assad regime forces and their allied militias – has been under a siege imposed by the regime since 2015, and has been undergoing increasingly deteriorating humanitarian crises over the years.

Access to essentials such as food, clean water, medicine and healthcare have been extremely limited to the camp’s approximately 8,000 remaining residents, with diseases proliferating at an alarming rate amid the poor sanitary conditions and state of housing that is insufficient for either the extreme heat of summer or the bitter cold of winter.

To make matters worse, Syrian regime forces have increasingly set up checkpoints surrounding the camp, blocking what few unofficial routes there were that had previously allowed what few supplies and food could be smuggled into the camp.

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At the same time, neighbouring Jordan reportedly continues to illegally deport Syrians in the country to Rukban camp, despite its conditions, while many of those who already reside in the camp continue to gradually return to territories recaptured and held by the Assad regime.

That latter fate often spells disaster for them, with the regime being notorious for arresting, detaining, torturing and, sometimes, killing returnees. As Nidal, one member of Rukban’s political council, said to Amnesty, “There are people who went to government-controlled areas for treatment and did not return. The last person to leave here is Fahd Muhammad Al-Harawi, 30 years old – he is married and has three children […] A month ago, he was arrested in Homs and disappeared.”

Another member of the camp’s political council, Mohammad Derbas Al-Khalidi, echoed those realities, confirming that those who return are often arrested, forcibly conscripted by Syrian regime forces, or are prevented from returning to their villages.

As a result of such conditions, Amnesty International urged the US to take responsibility for the urgent needs of the Rukban camp and its residents, highlighting the fact that the US military operates its Al-Tanf base near the camp and has de-facto control over the territory surrounding those sites.

In a statement by Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Aya Majzoub, she stated that “It is unfathomable that thousands of people, including children, are stranded in an arid wasteland struggling to survive without access to life-saving necessities. The residents of Rukban are victims of a brutal Syrian government siege; they have been barred from safe refuge or faced unlawful deportations at the hands of the Jordanian authorities and been met with apparent nonchalance by the US.”

Calling on the Syrian regime to “immediately lift its siege on the area and allow humanitarian aid deliveries to reach residents of the camp”, Majzoub asserted that the US should use its leverage to “fulfil its human rights obligations and ensure that the camp’s residents have access to food, water and essential healthcare.”

She added that “the international community must work towards sustainable solutions for the camp’s residents, such as the re-opening of the border with Jordan or safe passage to other areas in Syria where individuals would not face human rights violations”.

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