This year, Uganda commemorates World Refugee Day (WRD) amidst mounting concerns about the increasing number of refugees seeking safety outside and within their borders.
There are 100 million refugees and asylum seekers around the world, as well as 53.2 million internally displaced persons who need protection and humanitarian assistance.
This year’s WRD theme calls for asylum seekers and refugees to have the “Right to Seek Safety.
Whoever. Wherever. Whenever.” Uganda has fully embraced this principle by keeping its borders open and receiving 62,000 women, men, girls, and boys who have fled from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan since the start of the year.
Today, we celebrate the strength and courage of the new arrivals seeking safety in Uganda as well as the 1.5 million refugees already hosted in the local communities and unable to return home.
“Uganda continues to be a haven of safety and security for thousands of people fleeing conflict in the region, but we clearly need the international community to play itsrightful role in meeting itsinternational obligation of burden-sharing to enable us to shoulder the growing needs of refugees and host communities,” said Hon. Esther Anyakun, Uganda’s Minister of State for Relief, Disaster Preparedness, and Refugees.
This growing refugee population serves as a reminder that we must find long-term solutions to the world’s conflicts and assist countries grappling with the refugee crisis.
The refugee response in Uganda remains critically underfunded and its open-door policy, which is one of the most progressive in the world, that permits refugees to work, cultivate the land, and move around freely, is under threat.
On 28 March 2022, fresh fighting broke out in Eastern Congo causing a massive displacement of people seeking safety across the border in Uganda.
Since then, over 30,000 people have been received at the Nyakabande transit and holding center in Kisoro district, in southwestern Uganda.
People continue to be received at the holding center even as we mark World Refugee Day, today.
We also cannot forget the more than 18,000 new arrivals from South Sudan who have arrived in Uganda since January.
The influx has overstretched the Government and the ability of other refugee response partnersto meet the increased needs. Thousands of refugees and asylum seekers are being left without adequate lifesaving assistance due to insufficient financial and material support available, despite partners stepping up their efforts to respond.
The Uganda Country Refugee Response Emergency Appeal of USD 47.8 million that should cover urgent life saving needs from April to June 2022 is only 8 percent funded.
“There are simply no resources coming our way. We are not even at 20 percent financed for the refugee response plan this year. It is a dire situation.” said Joel Boutroue, UNHCR representative in Uganda.
The over 1.5 million refugees and asylum-seekers in Uganda are hosted in settlements located in 13 districts.
This number is expected to continue to rise considering the instability in the region. The generosity of the Ugandan people has not ceased.
Local communities continue to share the little that is available with the refugees in the settlements despite services and resources being overstretched. Jean-Christophe Saint-Esteben, the Chairperson of the Refugee INGO Forum said, “Current funding levels are not sufficient to meet existing humanitarian needs in Uganda, let alone respond to the increasing need due to an ongoing refugee influx from DRC and South Sudan.
Uganda urgently needs more support from the international community in order to ensure that it remains one of the world’s best-practice refugee response countries. We simply cannot allow Uganda to become a forgotten crisis”
