The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has called for urgent funding to provide life-saving assistance and services to 96,000 refugees in Uganda.

According to the UNHCR Representation in Uganda, Matthew Crentsil, U.S.$68 million is required to provide assistance as refugees from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

South Sudan descended into a bloody seven-year civil war in 2011, with more than four million people losing their homes.

Likewise, the DRC has the largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa, according to the United Nations, with 5.9 million people displaced.

‘By the end of August, UNHCR had received just 38 percent of its 2022 funding requirement of U.S.$343.4 million to respond to the needs of refugees in Uganda, as determined at the start of this year’, Crentsil said at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

‘The funding gap has strained UNHCR’s capacity to provide critical support, including basic humanitarian assistance, child protection services, civil registration, and livelihood opportunities.

‘Refugees are seeing a sharp reduction in support for income-generating activities, including for agricultural inputs that are critical to cultivating allocated land’.

At the start of 2022, Uganda was already hosting over 1.5 million refugees, making it one of the most important refugee host countries in the world and the largest in Africa.

Uganda is also a global leader in promoting peaceful coexistence and refugee settlement among host communities. Refugees are provided with plots of land for housing and cultivation. They also have access to the same health facilities, and their children attend schools together.

Photo source: EUCPHA