Tens of thousands of internally displaced people are suffering deteriorating humanitarian, living and sanitary conditions as a result of the recent military operations carried out by the Syrian regular forces and their allies in Daraa province south of Syria. Several incidents of deaths inflicting with diseases and were recorded at the Syrian-Jordanian border and the border line with the Syrian occupied Golan, according to several testimonies came by Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ).
Abu Ma'an, a displaced person who is residing in his own car with his family about 100 m from the border line with Jordan opposite of Elemtaih town, said in interview with STJ on July 5, 2018, that ten children died drowning while they were trying to fetch water from a dam located 500 m from the sand berm with the Jordanian border. In addition, several cases of sunstroke (heat stroke), severe diarrhea and skin diseases such as herpes were recorded as well as malnutrition and dehydration among the infants and the pregnant women.
Abu Ma'an added they were warned that the guards at the Jordanian borders would shoot live bullets in case anyone got closer or attempted to sneak through the sand berms towards Jordan.
Furthermore, Adnan, one of the displaced persons in al-Tabariyat area opposite Tell Shihab village, 100 meters from the border line with Jordan, said in an interview with STJ on July 4, 2018, that the Jordanian border guards fired live bullets in the air for several times aiming to disperse the displaced people who gathered at a point on the border line that distributed food aid, and the guards ill-treated and said bad languages to the displaced.
Adnan noted that there were no medical or relief teams in the region, and there was chaos and a severe lack of basic necessities of life, and he continued: "Each day a water reservoir comes and we buy water for usage at SYP 100 for each 20 liters (…). in addition, there are no lavatories, so we use primitive pits which caused the reproduction of insects and the high incidence of disease."
Alternatively, another displaced identified as Hani al-Hariri who is present at the Free Area between Syria and Jordan, said in an interview with STJ on July 4, 2018, that more than 20,000 people, mostly children and women, are there in the Free Area. There is overcrowding in only a small area, and the majority of the people suffer from sunburns and difficulty of securing water and milk for their babies.
Doctor Ya'rob al-Zo'ebi, head of the hospitals service of Health Directorate in the Free Daraa and who is present on the Jordanian-Syrian border, said in an interview with STJ on July 5, 2018, that cases of scorpions and snakes stings of children were reported at the border line with Jordan. A two-month-old infant reported to be died from a scorpion bite at the barbed wire fence with the occupied Syrian Golan, but the death of five children from similar injuries near the village of Elemtaih have yet to be definitively confirmed.
"The Jordanian army has established points to distribute aid opposite Nasib border crossing, but the distribution is in a humiliating, degrading and indiscriminate manner as they throw bread and water from behind the border line. Jordan have allowed only war injuries and some illness cases to enter for cure." The doctor stated.
On July 5, 2018, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that more than 320,000 people are now displaced and most are living in dire and insecure conditions, including some 60,000 people camped at the Nasib/Jaber border crossing with Jordan. An estimated 750,000 lives are in danger in the crossfire in south-west Syria, including airstrikes and heavy shelling..