Across the desert horizon of eastern Jordan rows of iron skeleton structures rise from the sand, marking what the United Nations says could become the biggest camp for Syrian refugees in the Middle East.

Across the desert horizon of eastern Jordan rows of iron skeleton structures rise from the sand, marking what the United Nations says could become the biggest camp for Syrian refugees in the Middle East.

Azraq refugee camp, 100 km (62 miles) east of the capital Amman, was formally opened on Wednesday after 10 months of work paving tarmac roads and constructing thousands of zinc and metal shelters that will ultimately be able to host 130,000 residents.

In planning the sprawling 15-square-km site, donors sought to avoid the pitfalls of Jordan's first camp at Zaatari, hastily opened two years ago in a dust-filled border zone where poor services and mismanagement provoked violent protests.

Unlike Zaatari, the new camp already has two schools and a central hospital run by the Red Cross plus a large supermarket that accepts vouchers from the World Food Program.

"People get to buy what they want to eat so they go home and cook, and so it's an element of normality for them with a supermarket that has full stock," said Jonathan Campbell, emergency coordinator for the WFP.

U.N. agencies went ahead with the construction of the mega camp at the height of a refugee influx last year when daily arrivals of more than 1,000 people raised fears that the kingdom would not be able to cope.

The opening of the new camp was also an admission of the difficulties of expanding relief efforts inside southern Syria to relieve the burden on Jordan, according to diplomats.

Four makeshift tent camps have been set up with Saudi aid in recent months inside Syria, close to the border, but fears that they could be attacked by the Syrian army have given impetus to accelerated construction at Azraq.

Jordan hosts at least 600,000 registered Syrian refugees, almost a quarter of over 2.5 million in the wider region. Officials say there are at least 1.3 million Syrians in the Jordan, only a fraction of whom live in refugee camps.