Govt, donors struggle to settle more refugees amid budget cuts

Refugees receive their food ration at Mungula Refugee Settlement in Adjumani District on September 5, 2022.  PHOTO | TOBBIAS JOLLY OWINY

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  • The district health officer, Dr Dominic Drametu, however, said the reduction in the budget will have a burden on the district facilities since the current facilities are stressed beyond their capacity.

Along an abandoned path leading to a derelict refugee learning centre at the extreme north of Pagirinya Refugee Settlement in Dzaipi Sub-county in Adjumani District is a unit of settlement harbouring new refugee entrants that have arrived in the country within a fortnight. About 250 families that arrived in Uganda in December 2022 are residing here. 

One of the refugees from Central Equatorial State, South Sudan, Ms Immaculate Gale, says United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) are yet to issue them with identification (refugee) cards that qualify them to receive the already reduced ration of food distributed monthly by the World Food Programme (WFP).

They join the already settled and validated refugees who are struggling to make ends meet, feed themselves and their children.

“We are sharing food among ourselves. Those with relatives who came in earlier are looking for such connections while others have fled with some little resources and money to sustain them for the meantime,”  Ms Gale says.

The onset of the dry season makes the already difficult situation worse as no vegetables or food can grow in the region for the next two months until the rain resume. The recent influx of new refugees into Uganda has exposed the incapacity of OPM and UNHCR to absorb and settle more refugees and asylum seekers.

Failure to realise relief funds

Even when the two bodies make haste to arrest the situation, they are bothered by a failure to realise relief funds to support the soaring numbers of refugees entering the country, especially those from South Sudan.

The reports of reduced funding by UNHCR towards the welfare of refugees and other related programmes and subsequently reduced food ration is negatively impacting the lives of the refugees, Mr Nyang Moses, the refugee welfare officer for Adjumani, says.

He adds that there has been a sharp rise in crimes among the refugee youth, with some resorting to stealing and breaking into people’s shops and houses at night.

“You find that some homes may have about eight to 10 young people but there is a little amount of food. That is not enough for them, as a result others are getting involved in drug abuse and theft and others have started breaking into shops and houses at night,” Mr Nyang said.

The most pinching effect is however being felt by the women who are abandoning their children in the settlements to sneak back to South Sudan to secure food and other requirements to sustain their families,”  Nyang says.

“Women are leaving children behind and going somewhere else in search of food and other services. For their families to be able to survive, children are left alone and when it comes to food collection, it becomes a challenge.”

Cases of mental illness have also increased among the refugees. The authorities attribute this to hardships in the settlement areas. Nyang adds that OPM and UNHCR have continued to urge them to advise refugees to seek land in host communities and alternatively engage in agriculture.

On Monday, Mr Titus Jogo, the OPM’s Refugee Desk Officer for Adjumani and Palabek, could not be reached for details since his contacts were unavailable.

However, an insider on the same (refugee) desk, who did not want to be named, said the coping mechanism has increasingly become difficult for the refugees as a result of food reduction.

He also said the burden has been worsened by the limited availability of land to be hired or given to the refugees for farming.

He added that there has recently been an increase in cases of conflicts between the host communities and the refugees since some refugees have started stealing food from plantations of nationals thus jeopardising their advocacy for peaceful coexistence.

“This has also resulted in a rise in conflicts between the nationals and refugees because you cannot sleep hungry when your immediate neighbour has a garden of cassava. So the refugees start destroying the food gardens of the nationals,” he said.

Struggling

Last week, WFP admitted that it is struggling to feed more than 1.4 million refugees currently settled in the country.

Speaking to journalists in Gulu City, Mr Meygag Abdirahman, the WFP Country Representative, acknowledged the huge funding deficit that the organisation is currently facing.

“Of late, we have been facing financial constraints due to global crisis of high food prices. It was difficult to mobilise resources due to the Russia-Ukraine war and we have to reduce some of the (food) ratios, with consultation with our partners and donors,” he said. 

Mr Abdirahman further noted that they are now switching their approach to equipping the refugees to be able to produce their food to supplement the ratios.

“We are trying to move more towards the resilience programme so that these people will at some stage take care of themselves and become self-reliant. We are hoping that there will be a permanent solution for the refugees,” he added. 

Mr Abdirahman said they will need about $200 million (Shs740 billion) as budget to cater for refugees’ feeding in 2023.

“We are talking about huge funding required to feed the more than 1.4 million refugees, which is a lot of funding,” he said.

Uganda is one of the most important refugee host countries in the world and the largest on the African continent.

By the start of 2022, the UN refugee body said Uganda was already hosting more than 1.5 million refugees. Of the number, a projected 950,000 refugees settled across northern Uganda are of South Sudan and DRC origin. 

Mr Abdirahman said their budget to feed refugees in Uganda significantly increased.

“It is a big responsibility for the international community to continue to feed and provide assistance to the refugees. We are providing food and cash assistance to almost 1.5 million refugees, almost 950,000 refugees are in this region, Acholi and West Nile and some in northwest,” he added.

There is also a rise in cases of child marriage among refugees which the authorities blame on poverty.

In September,  the UNHCR said it urgently required at least $68 million (about Shs250 billion) for life-saving assistance and services amid surging humanitarian needs for 96,000 refugees who fled to Uganda in 2022.  

The journey so far

UNHCR had also received just 38 percent of its 2022 funding requirement of $343.4 million (about Shs1.2 trillion) to respond to the needs of refugees in Uganda, as determined at the start of this year by the end of August.

In November 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Filippo Grandi, in a statement warned that worsening socio-economic conditions, ongoing conflicts and humanitarian funding shortfalls were increasing the risk of gender-based violence for forcibly displaced women and girls.

“A toxic mix of crises-conflicts, climate, skyrocketing costs, and the ripple effects of the Ukraine war, are inflicting a devastating toll on the forcibly displaced. This is being felt across the world, but women and girls are particularly suffering,” Mr Grandi said.

Mr Gabriel Ayom Akuoch, the refugee welfare councillor from Nyumanzi Refugee Settlement that is hosting the reception centre for Adjumani, said the situation has been worsened by the reduction in food ration.

“I have more than 500 refugees in Nyumanzi, mostly women and children, who have not been receiving food since the beginning of 2022,” Mr Ayom said.

Statistics

As of October last year, Adjumani hosted 206,666 refugees, according to UNHCR.

Ms Victoria Duite, the Welfare Council II leader for Palorinya Base Camp Settlement, said because the food ratio was recently reduced by the WFP, others now venture into tree cutting and charcoal burning as a business to sustain themselves and their families.

“Other than cutting it for cooking, they now sell it and that has increased the rate at which these trees are cut. The same refugees have very poor attitudes towards reforestation since they claim they are temporarily living in Uganda,” Ms Duite said.

She added that every week, the facility registers 10 cases of leaders of refugee  households abandoning children. She said some parents leave their children for lengthy periods in search of  food and other necessities.

“They leave the children to fend for themselves,” she added.

Budget cuts

Due to the financial crisis, it is established the UNHCR reduced its budget to 40 percent.

Affected organisations include Medical Team International [MTI] (responsible for implementing health-related programmes) and Windle International, responsible for education services among both refugees and the host community in the district.

Mr Maslouski Vitali, the senior protection officer of UNHCR and the UNHCR acting team leader of Adjumani, said due to the global financial crisis that UNHCR is currently facing, a 40 percent budget cut to its partners has been affected in Adjumani area.

“We know that we are a big player in the refugee affairs as long as they are still here, but due to constraints and other emergencies we have decided to reduce the budget by 40 percent,” Mr Maslouski said.

He said the responsibility of taking care of refugees should be borne by all stakeholders.

The district health officer, Dr Dominic Drametu, however, said the reduction in the budget will have a burden on the district facilities since the current facilities are stressed beyond their capacity.

“When the budget is cut by 40 per cent it is going to affect staffing in the health facilities that are being supported by MTI and more than 100 staff will be laid off. I expect UNHCR to do this in a phased manner starting with less critical staff so that the district can adjust accordingly,” Dr Drametu said.