Nearly 500,000 refugees in Uganda do not have enough to eat as a result of severe cuts to food aid and Covid-19 restrictions. 400,000 refugees are considered to be at crisis hunger levels and 135,130 children acutely malnourished and in urgent need of treatment.
The latest analysis showed more than 91,000 people living in 13 refugee settlements in Uganda are experiencing extreme levels of hunger. Bidi Bidi, in northern Uganda, home to more than 232,000 people, is the most seriously affected.
In April, the World Food Programme (WFP) in Uganda announced a 30% reduction to food rations and cash transfers to more than 1.4 million refugees who have fled violence in neighbouring South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi. The WFP has warned that it may have to make another 10% cut in aid this month.
“Unfortunately, this coincided with the start of the Covid-19 crisis in Uganda and the subsequent lockdown restrictions by the government of Uganda, which were also put in effect in refugee settlements,” said El-Khidir Daloum, WFP director for Uganda. “Due to these movement restrictions, refugees were not able to work outside the settlements to add to the food assistance provided by WFP through earnings from agricultural work, or to take on other livelihood opportunities.”
WFP needed $15.3m (£11.8m) to provide full rations to refugees living in settlements until the end of the year and has warned that the severe food shortages will push many of the refugees to the brink of starvation and will increase tensions within host communities.
“This is a serious source of instability,” said Jude Ssebuliba, head of programmes at the Food Rights Alliance. “It’s very difficult to control a hungry person...This crisis came as a result of the state depending so much on foreign aid to feed the refugees.”
Dismas Nkunda, executive director of Atrocities Watch Africa, said any further reductions in food aid would be a “near death trap” for refugees. “We need to mobilise funds for these vulnerable people to live normal lives,” he said. The refugees had already suffered, they must not now become victims of the Covid-19, he added. “It’s double jeopardy for them.”
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