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

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

ian capital

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

, and is home to around 100,000

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

refugees who are registered as such with the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

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

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, 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 in ...

in Jordan, followed by the Zaatari refugee camp.

History

The Baqa'a refugee camp was established in 1968 in Jordan to house Palestinians displaced by the

Naksa The Naksa (Arabic: النكسة, "the setback") was the displacement of around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, when the territories were captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. A number of Palestini ...

(Arabic for "the setback"), which occurred after the Israeli capture of the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

and the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

during the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

. 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, pronounced ) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians who fl ...

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

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. 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 r ...

, computers,

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

, exercise,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, 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

History

Facilities

See also

References