Jordan Shuts Iraqi Border to Refugees

Overwhelmed by a dramatic wave of refugees fleeing Kuwait, Jordan suddenly closed its borders to them Wednesday night, even as help was reported on the way in the form of a European-sponsored airlift for stranded Egyptians.

The closure came as King Hussein, the Jordanian leader, announced that 42,000 refugees, most of them Egyptian migrant workers, had entered Jordan by way of Iraq and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday alone. About 185,000 people have arrived since the invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, and only 67,000 have left, the monarch said at a news conference.

“The Jordanian government has decided to close its border to arrivals from Iraq as of midnight (2 p.m. PDT Wednesday),” a Jordanian official said in a terse radio announcement.

The move apparently strands tens of thousands of Egyptians and citizens of other nations who were reported to be lined up on the Iraqi side of the border with Jordan.

For several days, the numbers of refugees has increased steadily and the capacity of Jordanian bus transportation from the border has been insufficient to handle the influx. Two adults and four children have died in the arduous desert passage from the Jordanian border to Aqaba, where the refugees have been catching boats to Egypt, Hussein said.

Egyptian and Sudanese refugees transported to Aqaba were forced to camp out while awaiting ferries to transport them home. Ferry traffic also has been inadequate to clear the docks of refugees.

During his news conference before the radio announcement Wednesday, King Hussein foreshadowed the shutdown by saying that Jordan was seeking ways to slow the arrival of refugees.

“We’re finding enormous difficulties providing for the needs of these people,” Hussein said. “We may have to slow down the process of receiving more people unless we are able to speed up the movement of people from Jordan to their respective destinations.”

In Cairo, representatives of the European Community, the economic bloc of Western European nations, pledged to undertake an airlift of Egyptians from the Jordanian border right away.

“At the request of the Egyptian authorities, an airlift will begin operating immediately,” a statement from the EC said. “The community will contribute toward setting up means of transportation and additional evacuation, thus transporting Egyptians from different points on the Jordanian frontier to Egypt.”

The statement made no mention of Jordanian approval for the plan, nor did it spell out exactly where the airplanes would land. There is a Jordanian military air base about 100 miles from the immigration crossing at Ruweished, which is itself about 50 miles inside Jordanian territory.

Refugees, mostly wearing traditional white cotton gowns and carrying their belongings in plastic or canvas suitcases, have generally arrived with little money. At Ruweished, they have been forced to scramble to get on special buses to take them to Aqaba, which is a short boat ride across the gulf from Nuweiba, Egypt, a harbor on the Sinai Peninsula.

As the numbers grew, the competition for the buses became intense, and on occasion fistfights would break out for the limited seats. The wait in 100-degree temperatures could last hours, and there was little provision for food and water at the Ruweished crossing.

Once on the bus, or sometimes an open truck, the refugees are moved in convoys of up to 70 vehicles to Aqaba. To avoid crowding the tourist town of 45,000 with thousands of penniless refugees, the convoys were detained at towns and villages along the way until the backlog could clear up--at least temporarily.

Besides the Egyptians, refugees from Sudan, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon and other countries have flocked to Jordan in the past three weeks. Most have been laborers and left Kuwait because of fear and because their jobs had disappeared under the uncertainty of occupation.

At the same time, their financial savings in Kuwait were suddenly worth only about 10% of their previous value because of the decision to merge the Kuwaiti currency into the far less buoyant Iraqi dinar.

Jordan had been providing simple meals of bread and cheese for the migrants in transit. On Wednesday, the European Community and the International Red Cross announced that they would provide “essential and basic needs for the Egyptians who are returning to their homeland in such dramatic conditions.”

India already is providing air transport for its own citizens. The Philippines also is considering an airlift.

In the atmosphere of crisis building in Jordan, the decision to close the border appeared to reflect a failure of diplomacy with Iraq, with which Jordan has maintained friendly ties. Jordan supported the invasion of Kuwait, although it has criticized the annexation of the oil-rich country.

A few days ago, Jordanian officials said they would ask Iraq to reduce the flow of refugees, but the call apparently went unheeded.

To close the border risks trapping tens of thousands of refugees in an uncertain situation. The travelers have arrived with tales of terror and looting by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait.

Besides the refugees who are now trapped across the border in Kuwait, there are hundreds of thousands of other potential refugees in Iraq. The Egyptian population alone in Iraq is said to number 1 million.

Jordan also is faced with the embarrassment of having to receive foreign help at a time when it is criticizing the decision by Saudi Arabia to let foreign troops on its territory for its defense.

Meanwhile, President Bush, who had tried in the last few days to hide his anger at King Hussein, dropped his pretense at a news conference Wednesday in Kennebunkport, Me., when asked about Hussein’s charge that the U.S. buildup should have awaited further Arab efforts to resolve the Persian Gulf crisis diplomatically.

“The king, regrettably, did not have much support in the Arab world for that position,” Bush said, a sharp edge to his voice. “He certainly had no support for that position in the United Nations.

“I would simply remind people who hear that allegation that it isn’t the United States,” he said, “it’s the rest of the world” combined against Iraq.