‘Around 660 Syrian refugees in Jordan to resettle in Spain’

AMMAN — The Spanish embassy in Amman on Wednesday announced the start of procedures to resettle 662 Syrian refugees residing in the Kingdom.

An embassy statement, cited by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said that 180 refugees are scheduled to head to Spain on Thursday, while the rest of the refugees will be resettled within the next few months.

The resettlement process is in implementation of the Spanish council of ministers’ decision, issued in December 2017, approving the resettlement of 1,000 refugees from the Middle East in particular.

Spain, through the resettlement decision, seeks to ensure its solidarity with and commitment to resettle refugees, especially those coming from countries that were affected by the humanitarian crisis resulting from the conflict in Syria, the statement said.

A total of 1.27 million Syrians resided in Jordan in 2015, out of which 1.05 million of them are considered refugees, and only 667,000 of them are registered with the UNHCR, according to the Higher Population Council which estimated Syrians in Jordan at 14 per cent of the total population.

According to the UNHCR’s 2017 figures, Jordan is the seventh-largest refugee-hosting country in the world, with over 735,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered for international protection with the UN Refugee Agency across 40 nationalities.