VOA常速英语:75,000 Syrian Refugees Trapped, Dying Near Border, Amnesty Says(翻译)

Upturned rocks scattered across the desert landscape — makeshift graves that mark the untold suffering of tens of thousands of refugees.

In less than a year, the number of people stranded on this desolate frontier has soared from a few hundred to around 70,000.

"People that we were able to speak to described some really desperate conditions.They said food is running out, diseases are spreading, as some people are dying because of preventable illnesses.And, you know, what’s truly tragic is that if they really did have access to medical care, some of those people’s lives would be saved."

The border between Syria and Jordan has been closed since June, when six Jordanian soldiers were killed in a suicide car bomb attack by suspected Islamic State militants.

"At the very least, in the interim what they need to be doing is allowing humanitarian operations at the berm area on that Syrian-Jordan border to resume."

In early August, the U.N.’s World Food Program used huge cranes to drop a month’s worth of food and medical aid over the sandy ridge that separates the two countries, but that has now run out.

U.N. Special Envoy Angelina Jolie highlighted the plight of the stranded refugees on a trip to Jordan earlier this week.

"Jordan has been warning for years that they would reach a point where they, on their own, could do no more. The world has known about the situation in the berm for months, but no solution has been put forward.This is symptomatic of a wider problem."

Amnesty is calling for the international community to come together to solve the crisis at the twin refugee summits next week, one scheduled Monday at the U.N. General Assembly and the other a leaders summit hosted by US President Barack Obama the next day.

"It has to be an international solution if we are really going to tackle this refugee crisis. And that’s why we are trying to ask world leaders at the summits next week, at the Obama summit in particular, to make really concrete commitments to take in more refugees and really bear their fair share of responsibility for the crisis."

Aid groups say the desperate situation at the Jordan-Syria border is a stark symptom of the world’s failure to deal with the refugee crisis.