‘Around 2.4m Arabs of three nationalities live in Jordan’

AMMAN –– Nearly 2.4 million Arabs of three nationalities reside in Jordan, a government official said Thursday. 

The official, who preferred to remain unnamed, told The Jordan Times that Syrians represent the majority of non-Jordanian residents, with around 1.4 million people, only a small portion of whom live in refugee camps, while the majority resides in cities across the country. 

Egyptians are second, numbering around 700,000, the official added. 

Official figures also show that there are around 300,000 Iraqis in the Kingdom. 

With Department of Statistics figures estimating the number of Jordanians at around 6.5 million, the number of Arab nationals would make the Kingdom's overall population around 9 million. 

The official said that these figures were provided by Interior Minister Hussein Majali during a meeting with Senators on Monday to brief them on the latest local and regional developments and the government’s position on these developments.

The government source noted that the Kingdom hosts Arabs from other nations such as Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Lebanon. 

“There are tens of thousands of Arabs from these nations but the government always highlights the nationalities who live in Jordan in large numbers,” he said.