AMMAN, Jordan — Amman is stranding approximately 50,000 Syrian refugees near the country’s border with Syria, according to multiple UN officials who provided this exclusive information to Al-Monitor. The number of trapped Syrians in Ruqban and Hadalat is nearly double what has been previously reported to be around 26,000 on Feb. 29. Al-Monitor has obtained confidential documents by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which show that 53% of the Syrians who have been blocked in this isolated desert are minors.

Al-Monitor has requested since Jan. 24 to visit the “Berm,” the name used by international aid officials to describe this area. The Jordanian military has refused to provide access and allow Al-Monitor to speak with the trapped Syrian refugees.

In a video posted by the Red Cross, a Syrian refugee named Khadija Taleb, whose relatives have been stuck in the Berm after fleeing their Syrian hometown due to heavy bombing, described the area as “an arid desert devoid of everything and inhabited by scorpions, snakes, insects and wild animals.”

Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle, who is based in Amman, noted the large increase of Syrians stranded in Ruqban. Coogle told Al-Monitor, “What that tells me is how terrible things are in Syria that people will just go live in the middle of the desert in a tent with no security just because at least they won’t starve to death. It is just hard to fathom.”