AMMAN (Middle East Eye) – Before he fled Sudan, Ahmed was an award-winning runner. Now, as an undocumented asylum seeker in Jordan, he mostly runs away from the police.
“But I’m not a criminal,” he says as he opens his backpack to show his seven medals - gold, silver and bronze - won at junior championships in three different countries. His only crime, he says, was to travel on a medical treatment visa to Jordan, where he hoped to apply for asylum.
Since January 2019, Jordanian authorities have prevented the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) from registering as asylum seekers anyone who enters the country for the purposes of medical treatment, tourism, study or work.
“The medical treatment visa was my only way of leaving Sudan,” says Ahmed, who fled the Blue Nile region in 2019 when he turned 18 and now lives in an apartment with other Sudanese men in a suburb of Amman, Jordan’s capital.
“I ran away from injustice, from war and from discrimination, but I’m treated like a criminal here just because I want to live in a safe place,” he tells Middle East Eye.
The Jordanian cabinet’s decision to freeze UNHCR registrations has left thousands like Ahmed without documentation or access to humanitarian aid and basic services. Undocumented and considered to be in the country illegally, many are at risk of deportation.
For Ahmed, who arrived in Amman just a few months after UNHCR stopped registering asylum claims, the decision has meant living in fear of being detained and deported for being undocumented.
“Where am I supposed to go? It’s not safe for me in Sudan, my brother was shot dead,” he says, pausing to hold back tears. “But I can’t stay here with my life suspended, without any rights or protection.”
While the Jordanian government’s decision does not specify which nationalities are prevented from applying for asylum, it mostly affects people from Yemen, Sudan and Somalia, who need visas to be able to fly to Jordan, since they are unable to cross borders by land.
“We are aware of 5,500 non-Syrians who wanted to register with UNHCR but were unable to since 2019,” UNHCR spokesperson Lilly Carlisle told MEE, adding that without registration, asylum seekers are unable to receive formal aid, access medical care or enroll in schools.
“Not everyone who comes from Sudan, Yemen or Iraq is necessarily a refugee, but we need to be able to assess their claims as per international refugee law in order to protect people who might be in a very vulnerable position.”