- Harrowing journey for refugees
- Fleeing the bombs
- Acid poured on handcuff wounds
- Shelter offers relative comfort
- Winter journey to safety
- 'Please, photos and write . . . anything'
- Existence in exile severe
- Purpose-built, orderly and secure
- Night-time crawl under fire to escape
- 85,000 souls spread across camp
- Young scholar pleads for help
- Travel diary
It is a former school complex converted for the task.
There they interview 2000 people a day.
These people are asylum seekers or those renewing their asylum status.
They are those who arrive in Jordan legally across designated border crossings before seeking asylum, or those who have been released from the camps.
Refugees who cross illegally are first placed in refugee camps.
Some remain in the camps and others seek to live outside in Amman.
UNHCR communications officer Nida Yassin says there are 600,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan.
''That is equal to about 10% of the Jordanian population of 6 million people.
"Of these, there are now less than 100,000 in the camps,'' she says on our tour of the centre.
Through the UNHCR and the Jordanian Government refugees are provided with health care, food vouchers, cash assistance in some cases and education.
''Those that don't qualify for cash assistance are those who still have savings.
"Typically, this is about 2000 Jordanian dinars [$NZ3580] when they arrive and it dwindles quickly to nothing. Amman is an expensive place to live.
''They then sell their jewellery and anything else of value. Some are supported by relatives from overseas.
''We use cash payments to keep them above the poverty line.''
They are also screened for additional support services, including child protection and domestic violence services.
The centre is crowded. People seem resigned to the bureaucratic process.
The entire family must visit on arrival and once a year after that.
They are interviewed and identified via an iris scan.
The iris-scanning technology is seemingly out of place and slightly surreal in the otherwise stark buildings.
There is a playground for the children and the children are excited to see Western journalists and we soon have a queue approaching us to have their photos taken.
- Steve Addison
