Car bomb blast at Syria refugee camp on Jordan border kills 4

A car bomb on Saturday killed at least four people and critically injured a number of others at the Ruqban refugee camp in Syria near the border with Jordan, according to sources on the ground.

The dead included two men, a woman and a child, sources told Sky News Arabia, adding that many people had been injured in the blast.

The camp is home to refugees and to rebel groups that fight both President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State. The camp was targeted by bombings last year.

More than 75,000 people live in Ruqban. Millions of Syrians have fled their homes during the civil war, which has killed hundreds of thousands since it began in 2011.

Refugees have been trapped in Ruqban, a sandy ridge on Jordan’s north-eastern border, since Amman shut the border in 2014.

Satellite images obtained by Amnesty International suggested that camp residents have been creating makeshift graveyards as refugees succumb to malnutrition and diseases such as hepatitis.

As well as deadly diseases, fleeing civilians have also faced a number of attacks in the camp. 

Attacks last year targeted a Jaish al-Ashair checkpoint in the camp in October, which killed three people and hit a military post nearby in July, killing six Jordanian border guards.

Ruqban is in a desert area of the long border between Syria and Jordan, near to territory held by Islamic State, which regards the Syrian and Jordanian governments and other rebel groups as its enemies.

Although Islamic State has lost much of its territory in Iraq and northern Syria since 2015, it has in recent weeks attempted to expand and consolidate its presence in central and eastern Syria with campaigns in Palmyra and Deir Ezzor.