Thousands Are Left Stranded at Border by Jordan Shut-Off : Flight: Heat and lack of clean water take toll on migrants in buses, trucks and cars fleeing the crisis.

Tens of thousands of refugees stranded in a vast no man’s land between the border posts of Jordan and Iraq struggled to continue their arduous journey Thursday in the face of intense heat, a lack of water and food and the tie-up of a border that has been ordered closed.

Jordan officially closed its border at midnight Wednesday because huge numbers of refugees, mainly Egyptian, were stacking up at its southern port, Aqaba, for lack of ships to take them away. Other nationalities were having trouble arranging special flights for their citizens.

The Jordanian border post is 50 miles from the actual frontier and the Iraqi post, so thousands of migrants in cars, buses and trucks were stuck between the two. About 11,000 were permitted to cross to the Jordanian side, but thousands more remained.

In the gap between the Jordanian frontier post at Ruweished and the Iraqi post at Tuaybil, up to 50,000 refugees made snail’s-pace progress, witnesses said. The heat and the lack of clean water and food were taking their toll, said a physician who visited the area.

No deaths were reported, but three women went into labor and gave birth after being rushed across the border to Jordan. The situation is considered grave by physicians visiting the site.

“To tell the truth, it is miserable,” said Adel Quraan, a physician with the Red Crescent aid society. “A lot of people are in need of everything--food, medicine, water. I think the heat is the big problem. There are lots of sick people--hundreds of sick, thousands.”

The condition of refugees stranded inside Iraq near the border was unclear. Jordanian border officials said a riot broke out when a water truck appeared and the travelers rushed for it. Soldiers fired rifles into the air to quell the uproar.

There were reports of 20,000 refugees lined up at the sealed crossing.

Many were suffering from heat stroke, Quraan said, and headaches brought on by lack of water were a common complaint.

Once inside Jordan, the situation improves, but there are still enormous problems, officials said. An emergency airlift sponsored by European nations got under way at Aqaba, the port in Jordan’s far south, to ease a bottleneck slowing the rush of Egyptians.

In between, thousands more Asians and Arabs took refuge in Amman, the capital--in vacant lots, on the grounds of embassies, on sidewalks and in mosques and churches--while waiting for transportation to their distant homes.

The Jordanian government was defensive about having closed its border. “The recent move is temporary and will last only for a few days,” said Alem Masadeh, Jordan’s interior minister, in charge in immigration.

Almost 200,000 refugees fleeing Kuwait in the wake of Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion have entered Jordan, but less than half have found transportation out. A relative handful have left Iraq, although there are hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in that country too.

About two dozen British diplomats and their family members were reported to be crossing into Jordan on Thursday, but their arrival could not be confirmed.

In Kennebunkport, Me., White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the United States does “understand Jordan’s predicament” in handling the flow of refugees. “We are working with them and other countries in the region, and we are hopeful that we can help alleviate the situation and help resolve this matter,” he said Thursday. “But we don’t have any resolution of it at the moment.”

The Egyptian arrivals, of whom about 300,000 live in Kuwait, are mostly laborers. They have left much of their money in Kuwaiti banks shut since the invasion. Many sold off their belongings at cut-rate prices to raise money for the trip.

Reports of looting and thievery were common, along with stories of Iraqi customs officials confiscating electrical equipment that many tried to take with them. For the West, the invasion of Kuwait may appear to be an oil grab. For the humble workers, it was a grab for their videotape recorders.

“Sometimes they ask, but if you refuse, they drew a rifle,” said Mishik Palabarti, a hospital chef from southeast India who was camping at the Indian Embassy in Amman.

For the huge migration inside no-man’s land, the present problems were fast eclipsing the problem they left behind in Kuwait. Jordan is trying to deliver water by tank truck, but there is some question about the cleanliness.

“Stomach illness, especially in children, adds already to the serious dehydration,” said Quraan, the physician. “If not treated, it could lead to death.”

An ambulance with medicine sent to the zone was quickly emptied. Three ambulance teams will be sent today, and a tent will be set up at Ruweished for medical treatment, Quraan said.

“There is a danger of many deaths if the situation is not cleared up in a day or two,” Quraan added. He reported seeing huge groups of cars and trucks all along the route between Ruweished and Tuaybil, with many people sleeping in whatever shade they could find or lolling sleepily in their cars.

At Ruweished, there were alternating scenes of desperation and patience. The crush at the Jordanian immigration gate was steady, but relatively peaceful.

However, Jordanian immigration officials often tossed clumps of passports out to waiting crowds, setting off shouts and frantic shoving matches. There were frequent small fistfights as travelers rushed to board the infrequent buses.

Watermelon and tea salesmen were doing a brisk business. Shade was in scarce supply: A customs shed, a baked eucalyptus tree and a few buildings yielded up the elusive commodity. It was about 100 degrees on the rocky desert plateau.

In Amman, an amazing variety of nationalities were drawn to their embassies, where makeshift shelters were set up.

At the Indian Embassy, men clustered on plastic mats under blanket tents, and soaked pieces of bread in a vegetable curry cooked in a large common pot. About 400 Indians were idling on the embassy grounds and 1,000 more were scattered throughout the city in auditoriums, theaters and vacant fields.

Many of the arrivals complained that their savings, slashed by Iraq’s decision to annex Kuwait, lie unreachable in banks. Robert Digruz, an air-conditioning technician, said he was due to be paid two months’ salary the day of the Iraqi invasion, but the company quickly went out of business. Soldiers and impoverished Iraqis flooded Kuwait city and stole office equipment and company cars, he said.

“You can see empty car lots all over the city. I myself was forced to give up my wedding ring. What can you do? They have guns,” he said with a shrug.

He and four friends pooled money for the trip overland through Baghdad to Jordan. It took three days, with delays in the Iraqi capital, at the Iraqi frontier and at Ruweished. A tourist bus, hand-labeled “Indian,” picked them up and carried them to Amman.

On the door of the embassy, lists of passengers to board special flights to Bombay were posted, but the going was slow. Digruz figured it would take him three more days to leave Jordan.

The scene at the Sri Lankan Embassy around the corner was similar, and so were the tales of evaporated life savings and long desert journeys.

Kamal Silva, a hospital worker, said bread was being rationed in Kuwait. Now that he is safe in Amman, his thoughts turned to his job prospects back home, where he figured he would earn no more than a third of the $800 a month he did in Kuwait.

“That’s why we went to Kuwait,” he said. “There was money there.” About 250 Sri Lankans were sheltered at the embassy and at a nearby church.

In a garden in front of Pakistan’s embassy, a large green-and-white party tent was set up to protect some of the 750 refugees huddled on the ground. Another 3,000 Pakistanis were scattered around town.

Mirza Zursiqar Ali, a construction consultant, said a busload of Pakistanis avoided the long wait at the Tuaybil frontier post by setting out for the desert in an end run. Once back on the road, in no-man’s land, the bus proceeded by road past unsuspecting intermediary checkpoints. The trip from Kuwait took him two days.