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SOUTH SUDAN: RENEWED CALLS FOR HELP AS A MILLION SOUTH SUDANESE REFUGEES NOW IN UGANDA

Refugees in Uganda2

DAVID ADAMS reports on the passing of an “appalling” milestone in Uganda this week…

In a tragic milestone, more than a million refugees – more than half of whom are reportedly children – have now crossed from South Sudan into Uganda, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees announced this week.

In a statement issued to renew calls for more help from the international community in tackling the crisis, UNCHR said that South Sudanese refugees have been arriving in Uganda at an average rate of 1,800 people a day over the past 12 months.

And the UN agency added that in addition to those who have fled to Uganda, there are a million more South Sudan refugees in other neighbouring countries including Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

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Refugees in Uganda2

 

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World Vision staff meet refugees as they arrive in Uganda. PICTURES: World Vision

 

“The people of South Sudan will continue to have no choice but to flee until the root causes of the conflict are addressed. An inclusive and sustainable political solution is the only way forward to achieving lasting peace in South Sudan.”

– Claire Rogers, CEO of World Vision Australia.

Claire Rogers, chief executive of World Vision Australia, described the passing of the milestone as “appalling” and added that it was the result of an “entirely man-made disaster”.

“The people of South Sudan will continue to have no choice but to flee until the root causes of the conflict are addressed,” she said. “An inclusive and sustainable political solution is the only way forward to achieving lasting peace in South Sudan.”

South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, has been riven by an ongoing and vicious civil war which broke out between forces loyal to President Salva Kir and those loyal to his deputy Riek Machar in 2013. A peace agreement signed in 2015 failed to hold and the ongoing crisis has forced millions from their homes.

Of the million South Sudanese refugees now in Uganda, World Vision said figures show the majority – some 86 per cent – are female while some 600,000 – equating to 60 per cent – are children, a figure which has prompted Ms Rogers to label it a “children’s crisis”.

She adds that those who arrived in Uganda have witnessed “indescribable violence” and need long-term psycho-social support with many of them survivors of violent attacks or sexual assault. Many of them are unaccompanied and need to be assessed and placed with foster-care families.

“Too many children have been separated from their parents or travelled on their own,” says Ms Rogers. “Providing protection to these children is not only a moral duty but it is an imperative to ensure a brighter tomorrow for South Sudan.”

Yet, World Vision says that despite the burden being thrust upon it, Uganda is leading the world in terms of its response to the refugees.

Judy Moore, a Brisbane-based consultant who previously served as World Vision’s response manager for the West Nile region in Uganda and only returned from the country two weeks ago, says that unlike the situation in many countries, when refugees cross into Uganda they are settled into existing communities rather than placed in segregated camps.

“When refugees cross over into Uganda, they are given the full rights of a citizen, basically,” she says. “The Ugandan Government has the most progressive refugee laws in the whole world and they allow each of the refugees to have a plot of land, they give them survival tools and they are allowed to have [access to] education and medical resources…It’s a very progressive approach.”

To ensure that local communities are looked after as well, Mrs Moore says that the refugee framework in the country requires that humanitarian aid resources – with the exclusion of food – are shared between the refugees and host families on a 70/30 ratio.

“Because, when you think about, Uganda is quite a poor country and they are giving the use of all their existing resources to the refugees as well. So we don’t want the Ugandans to get poorer and poorer and have nothing and the refugees to be given everything.”

This is particularly important when, as Mrs Moore notes, the average time refugees spend in Uganda is 17 years.  “That’s why the government has come up with this structure because they know that they will be there for a long time.”

That doesn’t mean that life is easy for refugees living in settlements in Uganda, however.

A new inter-agency report by World Vision, Caritas and UNHCR, which has been working with South Sudanese refugees in Uganda since 2014, shows that the majority of the predominantly young refugees are forced to rely on food assistance with as many as 58 per cent not participating in any economic activity.

The study, which involved more than 1,100 refugees and host community families in two settlement areas in the Arua District in the north-west of the country, says that only 24 per cent of refugees are engaged in farming activities and even those who do find work can earn as little as $3.50 a week. It also shows that the arrival of refugees has put further pressure on local communities with scarcity of food driving up prices and growing concerns over the availability of firewood for cooking.

The report says there is some anecdotal evidence that a lack of employment opportunities in the settlements has led to some youth to return to South Sudan to participate in the conflict.

“There is a need to engage the youth in meaningful social and economic activities that will keep them engaged as well as earning income,” it concludes. “Peacebuilding actions and messaging should be an integral part of every livelihood programme.”

Mrs Moore, meanwhile, says the number of refugees coming across the border from South Sudan into Uganda routinely fluctuates according to the level of violence occurring in neighbouring South Sudan.

That’s something she’s seen firsthand when in South Sudan in 2014.

“There is a need to engage the youth in meaningful social and economic activities that will keep them engaged as well as earning income. Peacebuilding actions and messaging should be an integral part of every livelihood programme.”

– World Vision report

“When I was there, it was horrific,” she recalls. “I was in Malakal town which was a town with a population of 27,000 – the whole town when I was there was on fire.

“People had abandoned it, there were still bodies on the street. We were in a UN compound about the size of a football field with about 30,000 displaced people…It was 40 degrees and everyone was living under a canvas. We could only have food that was flown into Malakal…and there was no way that you could get food in any other way.

“We were getting shot at every night; opposing forces would surround the compound and fire mortars so we’d have to run into bunkers…It was the hardest deployment that I’ve had in 30 years of working for World Vision.”

Mrs Moore, who worked for World Vision in as many as 35 different countries and now works as a consultant, says that with little hope the refugees in Uganda will be returning to South Sudan in the near future – and with the $US883.5 million UN response plan only funded to the tune of 21 per cent, it’s critical that international donors honour their funding commitments.

“For the everyday person, it’s an old cliché, but prayer helps a lot. Everybody can’t go and be in South Sudan or be in Uganda but everybody can not forget the  children. It’s not their fault, they are the ones caught in the middle and we need to do everything we can to make sure that they can come back to a normal lifestyle as soon as possible and they can grow to their full potential.”

 

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