RAMTHA, JORDAN — A few months ago, boxes of tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers blocked the entrances to shops in a bustling market in Ramtha, close to the Syrian border.

Shop shelves were lined with boxes of cigarettes, and there were so many containers of goods from Syria that a storage facility was opened in the middle of the market.

Today the shops, owned by Jordanians, are closed, the streets abandoned. A main border crossing, where goods were being transported to this impoverished town, has been officially closed.

“Jordan’s economy has been devastated because of the lack of trade toward Syria going north,” said Andrew Harper, head of the United Nations refugee agency in Jordan.

Syria’s unpredictable conflict is increasingly raising tensions among Jordanians as the economy continues to suffer, and resentment toward Syrian refugees is growing.

Jordan has drawn waves of refugees in the past, but this wave is particularly difficult. The impact of the Syrian conflict has been most felt in the north, which relies heavily on trade with Syria. Jordanians in Ramtha also have strong tribal and family ties with people in Dara’a, birthplace of the Syrian rebellion.

“The main market has turned into a ghost town and all that is left is resentment and anger,” said Sami al-Mugrabi, a Jordanian who owns a small shop in the market.

Last year, he offered tea to Syrian refugees walking by and would listen empathetically to their stories of the cities and homes they had left behind.

“No more,” he said. “We welcomed them, even in our homes, but Jordanians are suffering to find work, classrooms are crammed, hospitals can barely cope, newlyweds can’t find homes to rent, and we no longer feel like we should be the ones to suffer because of them.”

Jordanian visitors to his shop — a doctor, a border guard, a businessman and an unemployed youth — echoed his resentment.

About 450,000 Syrians refugees are registered or awaiting registration in Jordan, according to the United Nations, and 1,000 to 3,000 people continue to arrive daily.

International financial support for refugees — and for the Jordanian government — does not necessarily reach the average Jordanian family.

“What we need to do is to provide not only support at the refugee camps, communities and on the government level but also alleviate the pain for the average Jordanian family,” Mr. Harper said. “They just cannot be expected to be absorbing the consequences of the international community’s ineffectiveness in Syria by themselves.”

In a recent poll conducted by the Center for Strategic Studies, a research institute at the University of Jordan, in Amman, 70 percent of Jordanian respondents said they opposed allowing more Syrian refugees into the country.

The United Nations has predicted that there could be up to 1.2 million refugees in Jordan by the end of the year — equivalent to a fifth of the country’s population.

“There is a lot of pressure on Jordan,” said Amer Sabaileh , a political analyst at the university. “The Jordanian public seems to always pay the price when it comes to the conflicts in the region — including Iraq, Palestine and now Syria.”

Analysts warn that Jordan faces other real challenges, apart from the refugee crisis. In November of last year, serious protests erupted in the capital and other cities, after the government’s decision to increase prices of fuel and cooking oil.

“Generally, Syrians are not to blame for Jordan’s chronic shortage of water or rise in electricity prices that is expected to take place in the summer,” said Manar Rachwani, a columnist and editor at Al Ghad, an independent daily. “In fact, protests against the rise of prices in Jordan took place before the Syrian crisis even began.”

Since 2011, there has been a series of labor strikes and small but regular protests to back demands for changes in the country’s electoral law to balance the representation of urban and rural areas more fairly. There have also been demands for the creation of an electoral framework that supports credible party political development and for a serious crackdown on corruption.

“The south is in a desperate situation right now and resentment in the north is growing, so it is clear there are tensions,” Mr. Sabaileh said.

Just last week, in the city of Maan, south of Amman, there were clashes between local residents and security forces over violence that had erupted at Al-Hussein bin Talal University, which left four people dead and dozens injured.

Some warn that a prolonged crisis across the border may distract the government from implementing comprehensive restructuring. In coming months, meanwhile, water shortages are likely to increase and the government is expected to raise the price of electricity.

“If politicians are going to say it’s because of refugees, it’s inevitable that we will witness some sort of violence and anger against the Syrians here,” Mr. Rachwani said.

Sandwiched between two civil conflicts, including Iraq to the west, Jordanians continue to express fears of violence spilling over their borders.

A few Syrian rockets have landed in Jordan and some residents continue to hear the sound of gunfire and shelling in the distance. A Jordanian soldier was killed in October last year in clashes with militants trying to cross the border from Jordan into Syria, according to the Jordanian government.

“The conflict is very close, therefore the status quo in Syria is a disaster for Jordan,” said Mr. Rachwani. “There are real fears and threats, so the longer the conflict drags on, the stronger the extremist groups become.”

Spillover effects from the U.S.-led war in Iraq still reverberate in the kingdom. The Iraq war also drew militants from around the world, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who led an insurgent group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and was killed by an airstrike in 2006.

Mr. Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the triple suicide bombing against hotels in Amman in 2005 that killed 60 people.

Increasingly, regional and local media have been reporting that some Jordanians have been crossing illegally into border towns to join Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian militant group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda.

There have also been claims by the Jordanian jihadist movement that some 500 Jordanians are fighting alongside extremist groups within Syria. At least 33 have been confirmed dead.

Although the government attempts to be cautious in its policy toward Syria, that is becoming more difficult as the conflict continues. Jordan’s geographic position and weak economy can leave it squeezed between competing interests in the region.

The Jordanian public, at the same time, has expressed opposition to foreign intervention in Syria.

Last month, the U.S. secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, announced that the United States would be sending 200 troops to Jordan, a close U.S. ally, to help contain the violence. In response, a few thousand Jordanians across the country demonstrated against the deployment.

“We want the bloodshed to end, but we don’t want to see a foreign intervention in Syria and we don’t want to see American troops on our land,” said Ruweida Hassan, a member of the Jordanian Women’s Union who joined a group of demonstrators last week in central Amman.

“At the end, we blame the Arab dictators and their unjust rule, which have brought us to where we are,” she said. “But the conflict in Syria is being exploited by many countries and the people always end up paying the heavy price.”

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By RANA F. SWEIS APRIL 24, 2013
AMMAN — They may begin with a slur, a passing glance or an accidental shove: Student brawls that turn into tribal confrontations have become an increasingly worrying phenomenon on university campuses across Jordan.

Already tested by tensions between “East Bank” tribes and ‘West Bank” Palestinians, and contested by pro-democracy activists, the country’s authorities now must respond to rising inter-tribal hostilities among the young.

“Tribal violence at universities is reaching an alarming level,” said Mohammad Nsour, a lawyer and associate professor at the faculty of law at the University of Jordan. “It has reached a level where we are reminded of the sectarian violence in Lebanon and Iraq.”

With 264,000 students enrolled in public and private universities, according to the ministry of higher education, the descent into tribalism threatens to undermine both the rule of law and Jordan’s respected academic institutions.

Nearly two years ago, academics and social experts drew up a comprehensive strategy to combat campus violence. Their report found that failures of law enforcement had enabled a hard core of troublemakers to incite repeated disturbances with impunity.

“You have to enforce the law, even ruthlessly,” said Hasan Barari, professor of international studies at the University of Jordan and a political analyst. “But there is no will.”

“At the university level, there are certain things that can be done that can mitigate the phenomena, and no one is doing that,” he added.

Nearly 40 major fights have taken place this year at universities across the kingdom, according to data reported this month by Thabhtoona, a national campaign for students’ rights. That compares with 80 such outbreaks all of last year, 61 in 2011 and 29 in 2010.

Mr. Nsour said admission policies have contributed to campus violence. Universities had been obliged to accept exceptionally underprivileged students, refugees and some unqualified students supported by the Royal Court, he said, seeding the ground for future trouble.

These students “cannot cope academically, but they still feel they can violate the system because they were not accepted based on merit,” he said. “They become frustrated and take it out on other students.”

There is a deep concern that tribal tensions in the universities will turn into a wider societal problem.

Lacking natural resources to build the economy, the government has consistently focused on developing its human potential. The literacy rate among Jordanians aged 15 to 24 stands at more than 90 percent, according to the World Bank. Jordan’s higher education system is highly regarded throughout the region.

Yet, with nearly 70 percent of the population under age 30, and unemployment mainly affecting the young, the country faces a major social and economic challenge. According to the World Bank, 25.6 percent of 20-to-24-year-olds are unemployed, of whom more than half hold a secondary certificate or a higher level of education.

Since the start of 2012, there have been some 50 protests by unemployed youths, according to Labor Watch, a local nongovernmental organization.

“This is the second consecutive year that we are suffering from violence across university campuses,” said Mustafa Al Adwan, secretary general at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, “and it is not only in a certain area or type of university, it is a nationwide problem.”

The death of an engineering student, Osama Duheisat, 21, in a tribal brawl this month at Mutah, a public university in the impoverished southern city of Karak, spilled over into widespread protests outside the campus.

“Sometimes we think it’s a social phenomena and not only related to universities,” Mr. Adwan said. “After a brawl between two students the problem extends to the areas surrounding the university.”

Hundreds of students across several universities held rallies last week to protest violence on their campuses, holding large photos of Mr. Duheisat, who is believed to have simply been a bystander at a brawl that ended in classes being suspended for two days.

Mustafa, 20, a student who did not want his last name used because he feared retribution, said he recently found himself in the middle of a fight at his university.

“I was as far away as possible from the fight that took place between two young men and it suddenly grew, became tribal and many people became involved,” said Mustafa, whom his professor described as an exemplary student.

“That same day, I was sitting in class and then a young man entered our classroom before the professor arrived,” he said. “A student pointed at me and said, ‘He is originally from the north.”’

He said the man dragged him outside the classroom, then assaulted him.

“I had nothing to do with the brawl between the two students, but it was retribution and revenge between tribes from the north and the south,” he said. “They found someone from the north in the classroom, and that was me.”

No measures had been taken against the person who assaulted him, who remained on the campus, he added.

Mr. Adwan, the education ministry official, said: “Our youth, who represent our future, are increasingly finding it hard to accept the other. What will this mean for our society in the future? We need to seriously resolve this issue. It is time to implement the laws.”

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