约旦是中东最大的难民营

AS IT IS 2015-08-10 Refugee Camp in Jordan Is Biggest in Middle East 约旦是中东最大的难民营

The United Nations refugee agency says hundreds of thousands of Syrians who fled to Jordan to escape the war in Syria face a difficult future. Tens of thousands of these Syrians live in the Zaatari refugee camp. The camp was set up three years ago in just nine days. It has grown as the Syrian conflict has worsened. It is now the largest refugee camp in the Middle East.

The fighting in Syria started more than four years ago, with a series of protests against the government. The United Nations estimates that since March of 2011, about 200,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

The U.N. High Commissioner¹ for Refugees says more than four million Syrians have fled the country. U.N. officials believe about 7.6 million others have fled their homes, but remain in Syria.

Ariane Rummery works for the refugee agency. She says that more than half of the 81,000 Syrians in the Zaatari camp are children. She says educating them is a difficult job.

“One in every three children inside Zaatri camp is outside of formal or informal schooling². There's also about nine and a half thousand (9,500) young people between 19 and 24 who need skills training and lack other ways to make a living. About five percent of these young people were at university in Syria, but had to drop out because of the conflict, and only 1.6 percent of those had managed to graduate.” 

As difficult as life is in the camp, conditions are worse for the more than 500,000 Syrian refugees who are trying to survive in Jordanian cities. A recent study shows about 86 percent of them earn less than $95 a month.

Ms. Rummery says these urban refugees are getting aid from the U.N. refugee agency, the World Food Program and other agencies. But, she says, it is not enough, and they are forced to make difficult decisions.

“Things like pulling children out of school. It means begging, it means child labor³. It is easier for children to work under the radar⁴ in Jordan, for example, and so families often are having to rely on their children to work because of their very difficult economic situation.”  

Ms. Rummery says only about 45 people a day now enter Jordan from Syria. She says that is because Jordanian officials are limiting the number of refugees. She says a growing number of refugees are returning to Syria because it is too difficult to survive in Jordan.

Words in This Story

formal – adj. received in a school

informal – adj. not formal

drop out – v. phrasal verb. to leave school before completing classes

beg – v. to ask people for money or food

under the radar – idiomatic⁵ phrase. not detected or noticed; not following rules

1 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

2 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

5 idiomatic   

adj.成语的，符合语言习惯的

参考例句：

• In our reading we should always be alert for idiomatic expressions.我们在阅读过程中应经常注意惯用法。
• In his lecture,he bore down on the importance of idiomatic usage in a language.他在演讲中着重强调了语言中习惯用法的重要性。