Sanitation challenges in Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement
Abdulrahman Elham, builds a temporary latrine.The public latrine is a few hundred metres away, not too far for some, but a difficult journey for a her and her toddlers. At night, the bush is their only option. PHOTOS/HERBERT KAMOGA
What you need to know:
- In the highway town of Bweyale in Kiryandongo District, lies the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, home to thousands of people fleeing conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Rwanda. Since January 2024, an influx of new arrivals has stained the already fragile sanitation situation, threatening public health and human dignity, as Herbert Kamoga reports.
On a scorching Tuesday afternoon, the sun casts long shadows over the dusty plains of Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement. Amid rows of makeshift shelters, a tarpaulin is balanced on top of sticks over a shallow pit.
The structure stands behind Elham Abdulrahman’s tent. It is not a kitchen or a storage space. This is Abdulrahman’s attempt at building a latrine.
“I came to this Settlement a month ago but my family does not have a toilet. I had to hire someone to dig this hole for me so we do not have to walk to the public toilet, especially at night,” says the mother of two daughters.
Originally from Sudan, Abdulrahman describes a life that, until recently, had been stable and dignified. “We had a home, a real bathroom. And we lived well. Then the fighting came. We ran, and now we are here, starting life all over again, without a toilet,” she says, resignedly.
The public latrine is a few hundred metres away, not too far for some, but a difficult journey for a woman with toddlers. At night, the bush is their only option.
“Sometimes, my daughters cry because they are scared to go outside in the dark. There is no electricity here. So, they hold it in or go behind the tent. It is unsafe, but what choice do we have?” Abdulrahman asks. Just across the compound, another mother, Mohja Isa, shares the same grim reality. With three children under 10, she has tried to maintain some level of privacy and hygiene, but without a latrine, it is a struggle.
“Every morning, I clean the area outside our tent because the children defecate in the open. There is no privacy or safety. We cannot take them to the public toilet in the middle of the night, yet we cannot stop nature,” she explains.
The Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 2022 indicated that 31 percent of households had improved household sanitation facilities while 63 percent had unimproved sanitation. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health (MoH), 14 million people in the country still practice open defecation in both urban and rural areas. Open defecation is more prevalent in rural areas (23 percent) than urban areas (9.4 percent).
Open defecation has become a coping mechanism for many new arrivals in Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, especially for those not yet allocated proper shelters or sanitary facilities. For women and children, the lack of adequate sanitation facilities brings not only embarrassment but also the threat of disease and insecurity.
Currently, the Settlement is home to more than 150,000 refugees, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) data portal.
Between January and May this year, 15,017 new arrivals, particularly from Sudan, settled here. Steven Bogere, the assistant camp commandant, says the surge has outpaced the development of sanitation infrastructure. “We have WASH interventions and running water systems to supply the community.
However, with the increase in numbers, there is pressure for us to increase the amount of water supplied. The systems are overburdened. We try to make sure that every 50 homes have a public latrine block, but with the influx, it becomes unsustainable,” he explains.
Abdallah says he had no choice but to construct his own toilet.
Communities are clustered to facilitate communal latrine access, with the expectation that households will construct their own toilets within three months. However, this is not always possible.
“Some refugees cannot construct the latrines themselves even if you give them latrine digging kits. Some have disabilities, while others are sick or old. They need partners to help them,” the assistant camp commandant says.
Households sharing latrines
Ismail Mohamed Abdallah, a 55-year-old refugee from Sudan, says he had to build his toilet after the camp’s general facility became overwhelmed. He received a cover slab from the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
“Although I built the latrine for my family, I now share it with three other families in the neighbourhood. Fifteen people regularly use the latrine. I cannot tell them to stop using it. After all, we are all refugees,” he says.
According to the Sphere Standard, a maximum of 20 people should share one latrine in an emergency setting. In Kiryandongo, it is not uncommon to find one latrine serving more than 60 people. The Sphere Standard is a set of universally accepted minimum standards for humanitarian action, designed to ensure quality and accountability response to disasters.
Olivia Ayebare, a water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) officer at LWF, says the sanitation coverage in the Settlement stands at 56 percent. This means 44 percent of the population do not have latrines.
“The 44 percent use their neighbours’ latrines. There are few instances of people excavating and burying feacal matter, though. We support the community with excavation tools to establish their latrines and give them dome-shaped slabs, at no cost,” she explains.
Since 2024, LWF has cast and distributed more than 3,850 dome-shaped latrine slabs to the community. Due to sharing, the latrines are filled or damaged before new ones are built. The most affected areas are the clusters receiving the new arrivals, such as Cluster B, Cluster C, Cluster G, Cluster I, and Cluster L.
WASH diseases
Joel Kagodo, the medical team leader for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, says when communities have access to water, WASH diseases will not be recorded in health centres. “Of the 13,000 patients who come to the outpatient department (OPD) of Panyadoli Health Centre IV, about three percent present with diarrhoea. That is nearly 400 cases weekly. Most of them are children aged between one and seven years,” he notes.
When Monitor visited the health centre, we found a mother, who preferred anonymity, nursing her twin infants, their small bodies weakened by days of diarrhoea and vomiting.
“The babies began crying on Friday night and I did not know what was wrong. By morning, their temperatures were high. I tried to cool them off with cold water and gave them Panadol tablets, but there was no change,” she says.
She adds that after caring for them through the weekend, she brought them to the health facility on Monday.
“They tested negative for malaria, but the doctor suspected a bacterial infection. After tests, it was confirmed that they had diarrhoea and they were put on treatment. I think the disease came from the poor hygiene at home,” she admits.
The mother says her babies crawl or lie on dirty ground. Although she tries to wash them after they defecate, she is impeded by the small basin and soap that the family has. Kagodo points out that while many factors contribute to diarrhoea, open defecation, and shared latrines significantly increase the risk.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Health (MoH), 14 million people in the country still practice open defecation in both urban and rural areas.
A call to action
Besides latrines, the Settlement is in urgent need of clean water. LWF has seven motorised systems providing water to the settlement. Five are hybrid systems, running on solar and electricity, while two solely run on solar energy.
“Every day, 1.3 million litres of water are pumped out by these different water systems. We also have 56 boreholes in the Settlement. However, this water is not enough to meet most of the needs of the people in the community,” Ayebare says.
Bogere calls on partners to help expand the Settlement’s water and sanitation facilities.
“With the help of the Uganda Red Cross Society, we are tracking water from the nearby host community and supplying it to the clusters with the new arrivals. This is not a sustainable measure, but it is giving them safe water as we work out a way forward,” he explains.
The health facilities in the Settlement have running water. However, their storage facilities are inadequate and if there is an interruption in the water supply, the users suffer. “Another challenge is the quality of water. We have many open water sources in the Settlement which are used to water the cattle. However, children also play in the water. We are now sensitising the people not to use that water for domestic consumption,” Kagodo warns.
The sanitation situation mirrors broader gaps in Uganda’s humanitarian response systems. The Sphere Standard and Sustainable Development Goal Six (SDG 6) emphasise the universal right to access safe and affordable drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene.
Yet, chronic underfunding in refugee operations continues to widen the gap between policy and practice. As Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement continues to absorb more arrivals, the need for sustainable WASH infrastructure grows increasingly urgent.
Shortage. We have WASH interventions and running water systems to supply the community.
However, with the increase in numbers, there is pressure for us to increase the amount of water supplied. The systems are overburdened. We try to make sure that every 50 homes have a public latrine block, but with the influx, it becomes unsustainable," says Steven Bogere, assistant camp commandant.
What are the Sphere standards for WASH?
The Sphere Standards are internationally recognised benchmarks developed to ensure quality and accountability in humanitarian response.
In refugee and displacement settings, they serve as essential guidelines for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions, helping to safeguard health, dignity, and safety among vulnerable populations.
One of the dome-shaped latrine slabs provided by LWF.
1. Toilets: One for every 20 People
One of the key sanitation standards is that no more than 20 people should share a single toilet during emergencies.
This ratio is designed to minimise the spread of disease and ensure that every individual has safe and dignified access to sanitation facilities. Unfortunately, in many refugee settings, this standard is difficult to meet.
In Kenya’s Dadaab refugee complex, for example, some toilet facilities serve more than 60 people, creating serious public health risks. A similar situation exists in Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, where some latrines are shared by up to four families, or roughly 15 people, and sometimes more.
The Sphere guideline emphasises the importance of constructing adequate latrines as soon as possible, but limited resources and ongoing arrivals can delay these efforts.
2. Water: 15 litres per person per day
Water access is another core component of the Sphere WASH standards. Refugees should be able to access a minimum of 15 litres of water per person per day. This water should be clean, safe, and available within 500 metres of every household. Access to water in adequate quantities is essential for drinking, cooking, personal hygiene, and household cleaning.
In practice, however, meeting this requirement remains a challenge. In some camps, water trucking supplements boreholes and solar-powered systems, but even then, shortages are common during periods of high demand or infrastructure failure.
In Ethiopia and Thailand, studies show that some camps exceed the 15-litre target, while others struggle to meet even the minimum. In Uganda’s Bidibidi settlement, long queues and broken taps often disrupt water supply.
3. Latrines: within reach and safe
Another key aspect of the Sphere Standards is the proximity of sanitation facilities. Toilets should be located no more than 50 metres from shelters to ensure accessibility, especially for women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. In Uganda’s Bidibidi camp, this target is generally met, but the quality of latrines remains low. Many lack privacy features such as doors, locks, and proper roofing, making them unsafe, especially at night. Source:www.slideshare.net
General Manager Editorial Daniel Kalinaki, Ag. Managing Editor Allan Chekwech,
Editor, Sustainability Hub Gillian Nantume, Features Editor Caesar Karuhanga Abangirah,
Contributor Dr Vincent Karuhanga, Jan Napio, Herbert Kamoga, Beatrice Nakibuuka
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