For Syrian refugees in Jordan, aid from Israel comes in a whisper
AL MAFRAQ, Jordan — Sultana is 23 years old and very hungry. She grew up in the suburbs east of Damascus, but when her house was firebombed by an airplane belonging to the Syrian regime, she fled the city in the night along with her husband and their five children.
Together, the group trekked south toward safety across the Jordanian border, adding their numbers to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have swarmed this remote, impoverished corner of the Hashemite Kingdom while Syrian President Bashar Assad’s reign of terror shows no signs of abating.
Sultana and her family were initially placed in one of the two UN mega-camps in the region, which have swelled into bona fide cities of transients and their tents. Like other refugees, she declined to have her last name used out of security concerns.
In the camp, disease and crime fester amid the more than 200,000 refugees desperately trying to feed themselves and stay alive. Local NGOs say that on most days, 700 to 1,000 more Syrians cross the border and add to the toll.
Fearing infection and frustrated with the overcrowding, Sultana and her family took their tents and moved to a smaller outpost, one of a handful of ad hoc mini-camps that have popped up amid the arid plains near the Jordanian town of Al-Mafraq. She may not realize it, but now her food, cooking oil and cleaning supplies come to her thanks to an Israeli aid organization and a network of Jewish donors across the Diaspora, including the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, the AJC, World Jewish Relief and the Pears Foundation.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/for-syrian-refugees-in-jordan-aid-from-israel-comes-in-a-whisper/
