The Baqa'a refugee camp ( ar, البقعة), first created in 1968, lies 20 km north of the

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

ian capital

Amman Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...

, and is home to around 100,000

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

refugees who are registered as such with the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

.UNWRA
''Baqa'a refugee camp''
Archived on 14 September 2013 It is the largest

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peo ...

in Jordan, followed by the

Zaatari refugee camp The Zaatari refugee camp () is a refugee camp in Jordan, located east of Mafraq, which has gradually evolved into a permanent settlement;West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

and

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

during the 1967 Arab–Israeli war. Between June 1967 and February 1968, residents were housed in temporary camps in the Jordan valley. When Baqa'a was set up it had 5,000 tents for 26,000 refugees on an area of about 1.4 square kilometres.

UNRWA The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians displaced by the 1948 P ...

replaced the tents with 8,048 prefabricated shelters between 1969 and 1971 with contributions from

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. Most of the residents have since then replaced the original tents and prefabs with concrete shelters.

Facilities

During the 2003–04 school term, the 16 schools in the camp enrolled 16,718 students, and had 493 paid employees on the teaching staff, with each school run on a double-shift basis in eight school buildings. The UN also runs a general clinic, and two mother-and-child clinics, which jointly treat around 1,200 patients every day, and which are staffed by 12 doctors, two dentists, and 57 nurses and assistants; there is also a kindergarten and nursery financed by UNRWA. Two women's programs run courses in sewing,

hairdressing A hairdresser is a person whose occupation is to cut or style hair in order to change or maintain a person's image. This is achieved using a combination of hair coloring, haircutting, and hair texturing techniques. A Hairdresser may also be refe ...

, computers,

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, exercise,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, legal consultancy, and handicrafts. There are also two sports clubs and 17 charities operating in the camp. The camp houses a market, called Souq Al-Hal-lal, where residents can earn some money selling their wares or food, and many also earn a living by traveling by bus in the morning to Amman, where they work as cleaning or maintenance staff.

References

{{Coord, 32, 04, 25, N, 35, 50, 35, E, display=title, region:JO Populated places established in 1968 Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan