The Kalandia camp was established in 1949 on 0.35 square kilometres of land, 11km north of Jerusalem.
The main Jerusalem-Ramallah road runs through the camp. The camp’s original residents came from 52 villages in the Lydd, Ramleh, Haifa, Jerusalem and Hebron areas. Like other West Bank camps, it was established on land UNRWA leased from the government of Jordan.
The Israeli authorities consider this area as part of Greater Jerusalem, and the camp was thus excluded from the redeployment phase in 1995. Kalandia camp remains under Israeli control today.
All shelters are connected to public water and electricity infrastructure. Most units are also connected to a sewerage system that was only designed for liquid waste and is unsuitable for refugees’ needs. Since people often make the connection to the sewerage system themselves, it often leaks. The Jerusalem Water Company replaced the network without coordinating with UNRWA in 2007, thus destroying paved roads and worsening camp conditions overall. The shelters lack ventilation.
Almost one in five residents is unemployed.
Statistics
- Around 11,000 registered refugees
- Four schools
- One food distribution centre
- One UNRWA health centre, five private health centres
- One physiotherapy unit
- One community-based rehabilitation centre
- One health centre
- One women’s programme centre
- Demographic profile:
Programmes in the camp
Major problems
- Unemployment
- Insufficient sewage network
- Destroyed roads
- Bad camp conditions
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