JORDAN-SYRIA BORDER — Islamic State extremists are expanding their influence in a sprawling camp for displaced Syrians on Jordan’s border, posing a growing threat to the kingdom, a senior Jordanian military commander said.
Brigadier General Sami Kafawin, chief of Jordan’s border forces, spoke during a tour of the desert area, near where Jordan, Syria, and Iraq meet.
The Islamic State group seized parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 and still holds territory there, including areas abutting Jordan, despite recent military setbacks.
A flight in a military helicopter on Tuesday offered a view of the Rukban camp, an expanse of tents and makeshift shelters housing tens of thousands of stranded Syrians.
Conditions in Rukban and the smaller Hadalat camp deteriorated sharply after Jordan sealed its border in June, following a cross-border Islamic State bomb attack that killed seven Jordanian border guards.
The closure disrupted what until then had been fairly regular distributions of food and water by Jordan-based international aid agencies. In recent months, there had been mounting reports of lack of clean water, the rise of malnutrition among children, and the spread of disease.
Late last year, after months of negotiations, United Nations-led aid groups and Jordanian officials worked out a new arrangement for the camps, located between two low miles-long berms that straddle the Syrian-Jordanian border.
A food distribution center was set up several miles west of Rukban, while UN mobile health clinics consisting of several trailers were established on Jordanian territory, near the southern-most berm.
Aid officials said tribal leaders help organize the distributions, despite concerns by aid agencies that this will lead to unfair allotments and black marketeering.
In a joint statement on Wednesday, UN agencies in Jordan said conditions still ‘‘present a survival challenge,’’ while acknowledging the Jordanian military’s efforts to coordinate aid shipments.
‘‘Delivery of humanitarian aid experienced serious delays and interruptions due to logistical and security constraints over the past months,’’ the statement said. ‘‘Only one distribution cycle of a month’s worth of food rations and essential items, including blankets, warm clothes, and plastic sheeting, was made possible to those living at the berm between November 2016 and January 2017.’’
The statement said water has been delivered regularly and that UN health services were able to provide life-saving care, with the most serious cases referred to Jordan for further treatment.
At one of the mobile health clinics on Tuesday, Najah Khidr, who is two months pregnant, said she came because she had suffered bleeding the night before. She said she and her eight-member family live in dire conditions.
‘‘It’s too cold there, no electricity and no sustainable food supplies,’’ the 41-year-old woman said, struggling to stand up.
Another patient, 14-year-old Mathour Yassin Khleif, said a kerosene stove caught fire in his family’s shelter, burning him and his sister. Khleif suffered severe burns, the clinic report said.
Mustafa Zboun, an official of the UN child agency, said most patients at the mobile clinic are pregnant women and children suffering from malnutrition. Patients were transported from Rukban to the clinic by ambulance after a security vetting.
More than 200 Syrians have been allowed entry to Jordan for medical treatment since November, he said.
At the same time, the Islamic State threat from Rukban is rising, with militants trying to “create cells inside the camp,’’ said Kafawin, the border commander. ‘‘We are sure they have whole weapons systems.’’
