Refugees Daily - Internal Global Press Review

Uganda said on Saturday it would resume mediating peace talks for Burundi after violence that has pushed the Central African country close to civil war and led the African Union to prepare for the imposition of a peace keeping force.

Both the government and Burundi's largest opposition coalition welcomed the move to restart talks.

On Friday, the African Union said it was preparing to send 5,000 peace keepers to Burundi to protect civilians, for the first time using powers to deploy troops to a member country against its will.

Tensions have been running particularly high since gunmen attacked military sites in the Burundi capital Bujumbura last week, unnerving a region where memories of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda are still raw.Burundi slid into crisis in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans for a third term in office.

The United Nations says at least 400 people have been killed since April when Nkurunziza's decision triggered protests and later a failed military coup.

Uganda's defense minister, Chrispus Kiyonga, told a news conference in Kampala the security situation in Burundi had been deteriorating.

"It is now considered appropriate and critical that the dialogue resumes," Kiyonga said.

He said about 14 groups representing various sections of Burundian society, including the ruling party, opposition parties and civil society would attend the talks.

Burundi government spokesman Philippe Nzobonariba said the government has always been open to talks and was waiting for an invitation.

"It's an inter-Burundian dialogue and only Burundians will determine what to discuss," he told Reuters.

Nzobonariba however ruled out holding talks with anyone it accused of being behind the May attempted coup.

"It may be an occasion to put hands our on them as they are sought by Burundi justice," he said.

Pancrace Cimpaye, spokesman for Burundi's largest opposition coalition known as CNARED, welcomed the resumption of talks, though he said the group was yet to receive an invitation.

"For us talks are between two parties in conflict, and the two warring parties today is Nkurunziza and his government on one side, and CNARED on the other", he told Reuters.

The talks will resume in Uganda on Dec. 28 and thereafter move to Arusha in northern Tanzania. Arusha is the headquarters of the regional bloc East African Community (EAC), to which Burundi belongs. In July the EAC appointed Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni to mediate in the conflict and initial meetings were held in Burundi's capital Bujumbura in the same month.

In the worst clashes since the failed coup in May, insurgents attacked military camps in the capital Bujumbura last week and nearly 90 people were killed.

Rights groups have reported violent clashes between protesters and authorities, gun attacks and detentions of government critics. The government dismisses reports of rights abuses.

Hundreds of thousands have also fled the worst violence to hit the country since it emerged from an ethnically charged civil war in 2005.

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Additional reporting by Patrick Nduwimana in Kigali; Editing by George Obulutsa and Stephen Powell)
 

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said Friday that two convoys carrying 645 Ivorian refugees have begun their journeys home from two Liberian camps where they lived for the past few years. The agency said two more convoys are planned by the end of the year.

Some 300,000 people fled Ivory Coast during the violence that followed the November 2010 presidential election, including 200,000 who went to Liberia. The political crisis ended in April 2011, and in late 2012 the UNHCR began its voluntary repatriation program.

However, the program was suspended in July 2014 when land borders between Ivory Coast and its neighbors Liberia and Guinea were closed because of the Ebola epidemic that eventually killed more than 11,000 people across West Africa.

Now, with the epidemic over, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said the refugees are eager to go home, and that many of the 38,000 Ivorian refugees still in Liberian camps wish to return immediately.

Edwards told VOA that on arrival, the returnees will spend a day in transit centers where they will get a hot meal and undergo a medical screening.

"They will be provided with information, including about Ebola and other aspects of their return," he said. "Then they will be given aid and they will be taken as far as possible to their home villages, where they will be given further integration help, further support in re-establishing livelihoods and the aid they will need to immediately get on with things."

Edwards said the refugees will receive basic items such as kitchen utensils, mattresses and mosquito nets, and the World Food Program will provide each refugee with food rations for three months.

The agency has helped some 40,000 refugees return home; another 160,000 Ivorians have returned on their own.

Starting over

For many, returning to Ivory Coast means starting from scratch.

Now back home in Abidjan, former refugee Nadege Bla doesn't regret returning after spending a year in a half in a refugee camp in Togo. But she said the government hasn't made good on its promises of assistance and jobs for returning refugees.

"I came home but I didn't get any of this help," she said. "I had to fight to have school fees taken care of for my children, and I only got it last year."

With the help of the UNHCR, Bla submitted a micro-finance proposal to restart her photography business this year. She is waiting for approval.

Nora Sturm, a communication officer at the UNHCR, said Bla's case is not unique.

"These refugees have left their country for years, and when they come back, often they have lost their home, their jobs, their lands," she said.

Sturm said the UNHCR is trying to help them reintegrate, but with about 240,000 returnees in the past four years, the need is great.

"When they return to Cote d'Ivoire they are hoping that their lives will be as good as it were as they left, or even better," she said. "We do provide them with startup finance assistance to get their life back on track, but our resources are quite limited."

'Stay strong'

It wasn't an easy transition for Moussa Diomande, either. The 40-year-old sales representative remembers the day his convoy of returnees from Togo reached Abidjan.

"I asked myself, is it really Abidjan?" he said. "At the camp, all they would tell is that everything had been destroyed. I was wondering why I had stayed away for so long, while people had already come back and were already rebuilding their lives."

Diomande used startup money the UNHCR gave him to rent a place to live with other former refugees.

Little by little, Diomande reactivated his client network, and business started to take off. Now he has created his own company and lives in a newly built apartment in a new neighborhood of Abidjan.

His advice to the people returning now: Stay strong.

"They can do even better than the people who stayed here, but shouldn't think that everything will fall on their lap," he said. "The government might give a little help, but ultimately it will be up to them to make it work."
 

APA-Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire) L'opération de rapatriement des réfugiés ivoiriens au Libéria du Haut-Commissariat aux réfugiés des Nations Unies (UNHCR) a repris, vendredi, avec le retour de 654 personnes, annonce un communiqué du HCR, transmis, dimanche, à l'Agence de Presse Africaine (APA).

Cette opération avait été suspendue pendant plus d'un an à cause de l'épidémie due au virus Ebola qui sévissait au Libéria où environ 11.000 des 38.000 réfugiés ivoiriens ont exprimé leur désir de rentrer chez eux dès que possible.

''Un convoi transportant 244 personnes a quitté la ville côtière de Harper, dans l'Est du Liberia, pour se rendre à Tabou, dans le Sud-ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire. Un second convoi, avec à bord 401 personnes, a quitté le camp de réfugiés de PTP dans le comté de Grand Gedeh du Liberia, pour se rendre à Toulépleu, dans l'Ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire'', indique le communiqué.

Deux autres convois sont prévus ''plus tard dans le mois, portant ainsi le nombre total de rapatriés à 1000 d'ici la fin de l'année'', précise le texte qui note que ''les convois emprunteront des corridors humanitaires spéciaux car les frontières restent fermées''.

''Ceci est une journée très importante et encourageante qui permettra aux réfugiés de ces convois de finalement revenir et aider à reconstruire leur pays et de reprendre une vie normale dans leurs propres maisons, après plusieurs années d'exil », a expliqué Ndeye Ndour, la Représentante du HCR au Liberia.

A leur arrivée à Tabou et à Toulépleu, poursuit le communiqué, les rapatriés passeront une journée dans les centres de transit, où ils recevront ''un repas chaud et se soumettront à un examen médical, y compris un dépistage du virus Ebola''.

''Avant qu'ils ne regagnent leurs villages, les rapatriés recevront des ustensiles de cuisine, des matelas, des moustiquaires et d'autres articles d'assistance élémentaire pour leur permettre de reconstruire leurs vies, ainsi que des vivres pour une durée de trois mois du Programme Alimentaire Mondial (PAM)'', souligne-t-on.

''Le HCR facilitera la réintégration des rapatriés dans leur pays d'origine, notamment à travers des activités génératrices de revenus, des formations et une assistance financière. Le gouvernement ivoirien a mis en place plusieurs programmes pour aider les rapatriés à retrouver leurs terres et aux enfants d'aller à l'école", rappelle le document.

Environ 300.000 personnes ont fui la Côte d'Ivoire suite aux violences engendrées par les élections présidentielles en novembre 2010, dont plus de 200.000 qui se sont réfugiées au Liberia. La crise ayant pris fin en avril 2011, le rapatriement volontaire des réfugiés ivoiriens au Liberia a débuté fin 2012.

L'épidémie d'Ebola en Afrique de l'Ouest a engendré la fermeture des frontières terrestres entre la Côte d'Ivoire et le Liberia et la Guinée, et a obligé le HCR et ses partenaires à suspendre les opérations de rapatriement en juillet 2014.

''Aucun réfugié ivoirien au Liberia n'a contracté la maladie et des mesures robustes de prévention ont été mises en place dans les camps depuis mars 2014, lorsque l'épidémie a commencé'', conclut le communiqué.
 

More than 27 high-profile Congolese figures, including Moise Katumbi, considered a main opposition candidate in next year's presidential polls, have formed a coalition aimed at preventing a bid from Joseph Kabila for a third term, their statement said.

"We have decided to combine our forces, our human and material resources, our strategies and our actions, to create a citizen coalition named 'Citizen Front 2016'," the statement reads.

Kabila, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in office, has not commented publicly on his political ambitions despite critics' accusations that he is attempting to cling to power.

The announcement comes as the vast central African country's parliament contemplates giving more protection from prosecution to former rulers, viewed as a way of encouraging Kabila to step down in November next year.

Africa's biggest copper producer has not had a single peaceful handover of power since independence from former colonial master Belgium in 1960.

(Reporting by Amedee Mwarabu Kiboko; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Alison Williams and Digby Lidstone)
 

(CNN) – Kenya's cholera epidemic has reached the world's largest refugee camp and doctors worry the outbreak could continue to spread.

Seven people have died in Dadaab, in northern Kenya near the border with Somalia, since the outbreak was declared in November, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said in a statement.

In the last three weeks, more than 300 patients have been admitted to treatment centers, and 30% of those patients were children under 12, according to MSF.

"We are still trying to control the spread," UNHCR spokesman in Kenya Duke Mwancha told CNN on Saturday. UNHCR is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Lack of proper sanitation and education of the population are among the main challenges in halting infections, Mwancha said. There are are not enough pit latrines in the camp for the size of its population, and people often allow their children play in the mud or in floodwater, he said.

Poor sanitary coverage

Treatment centers have been established throughout the camps but more resources and funding are needed, Mwancha said. "The current situation enables us to have only 50% pit latrine coverage," he said.

The infection spreads through contaminated water or food, and is accelerated by poor hygiene and inadequate sanitation.

"The fact that this outbreak has occurred further highlights the dire hygiene and living conditions in the camp and a lack of proper long-term investment in sanitation services," said Charles Gaudry, head of the MSF mission in Kenya.

With the rainy season making already poor living conditions even worse, doctors and volunteers are concerned the epidemic could continue to spread.

"The rains are exacerbating an already-precarious hygiene situation," said Gaudry. "While immediate measures are now being put in place to address the cholera outbreak, it is crucial also that proper investment is made on a longer term basis to improve living conditions for refugees and prevent future epidemics."

Dadaab is home to more than 330,000 refugees, the majority of them fleeing violence and insecurity in neighboring Somalia, according to the latest UNHCR data.
 

LAGOS, Nigeria — Suspicious neighbors and landlords pry into their private lives. Blackmailers hunt for victims on the social media sites they use to meet others of the same sex. Police officers routinely stop them to search for incriminating images and chats on their cellphones.

Since an anti-gay law went into effect last year, many gay Nigerians say they have been subjected to new levels of harassment, even violence.

They blame the law, the authorities and broad social intolerance for their troubles. But they also blame an unwavering supporter whose commitment to their cause has been unquestioned and conspicuous across Africa: the United States government.

"The U.S. support is making matters worse," said Mike, 24, a university student studying biology in Minna, a town in central Nigeria who asked that his full name not be used for his safety. "There's more resistance now. It's triggered people's defense mechanism."

Four years ago, the American government embarked on an ambitious campaign to expand civil rights for gay people overseas by marshaling its diplomats, directing its foreign aid and deploying President Obama to speak before hostile audiences.

Since 2012, the American government has put more than $700 million into supporting gay rights groups and causes globally. More than half of that money has focused on sub-Saharan Africa — just one indication of this continent's importance to the new policy.

America's money and public diplomacy have opened conversations and opportunities in societies where the subject was taboo just a few years ago. But they have also made gay men and lesbians more visible — and more vulnerable to harassment and violence, people on both sides of the gay rights issue contend. The American campaign has stirred misgivings among many African activists, who say they must rely on the West's support despite often disagreeing with its strategies.

In Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, the final passage of the 2014 law against homosexuality — which makes same-sex relationships punishable by 14 years in prison and makes it a crime to organize or participate in any type of gay meeting — is widely regarded by both supporters and opponents of gay rights as a reaction to American pressure on Nigeria and other African nations to embrace gay rights.

"The Nigerian law was blowback," said Chidi Odinkalu, chairman of Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission and the senior legal officer for the Africa Program of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which supports gay rights on the continent. "You now have situations of gay men being molested on the streets or taunted. That was all avoidable."

"I've said to U.S. diplomats privately as well — the risk is causing more harm than good," Mr. Odinkalu added. "You don't want an infusion of good will to actually do harm to the community that you think you're protecting."

Anti-gay sentiments are widespread across Africa. Same-sex relations remain illegal in most nations, the legacy of colonial laws that had been largely forgotten until the West's push to repeal them in recent years.

Fierce opposition has come from African governments and private organizations, which accuse the United States of cultural imperialism. Pressing gay rights on an unwilling continent, they say, is the latest attempt by Western nations to impose their values on Africa.

"In the same way that we don't try to impose our culture on anyone, we also expect that people should respect our culture in return," said Theresa Okafor, a Nigerian active in lobbying against gay rights.

American officials defend their efforts, saying they are mindful of the many risks gay Africans face.

"If it's important to advance the human rights and development of these folks by being discreet, that's a position we're perfectly comfortable taking," said Todd Larson, the senior lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender coordinator for the United States Agency for International Development. "Our goal is to support them in their efforts and not necessarily take front and center, particularly when highlighting U.S. support might endanger our partners."

Shortly after Nigeria's law went into effect, Animashaun Azeez, 24, a university student here, arranged to meet somebody he had chatted with on Manjam, a social network for gay people. The person showed up, along with three plainclothes officers. Mr. Azeez said he spent three days in jail and was released only after his father, fearing publicity, paid off the police with about $900.

"Many L.G.B.T. people are getting into trouble day by day," said Mr. Azeez, who after the episode became a volunteer for the Initiative for Equal Rights, a gay rights group in Lagos.

Violence against gay Nigerians has increased significantly, according to the country's National Human Rights Commission. Most are attacked in the open by groups of men, some of whom call themselves "cleansers," rights groups say.

But victims often do not report attacks for fear of being outed. Even men infected with H.I.V. are often reluctant to seek treatment at hospitals, fearing that the authorities will be called, said Stella Iwuagwu, executive director of the Center for the Right to Health, an H.I.V. patient and rights group based in Lagos.

"Before, these people were leading their lives quietly, and nobody was paying any attention to them," Ms. Iwuagwu said. "Before, a lot of people didn't even have a clue there were something called gay people. But now they know and now they are outraged. Now they hear that America is bringing all these foreign lifestyles. They are emboldened by the law. The genie has already left the bottle."

The United States' role comes as longstanding foes in its culture wars continue to move their fight to Africa. Many private supporters of equal rights for gay people in the United States, after landmark successes at home, are increasing their funding of gay causes abroad, especially in Africa.

American conservative and Christian groups have also turned to Africa, where the vast majority of people still share their opposition to same-sex relations and marriage.

"There is an intentional effort to coordinate with Africa specifically because we don't want them to make the mistakes we've made here in America," said Larry Jacobs, managing director of the World Congress of Families, an umbrella organization of social conservative and religious groups. It is based in Rockford, Ill., and is active with Ms. Okafor in Nigeria.

Gay Africans are becoming increasingly caught in the American culture battles being waged in Africa, said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Anglican priest from Zambia who is a researcher at the Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates.

"When two elephants fight, the grass will suffer," said Mr. Kaoma, who has documented the ties between American evangelicals and the anti-gay movement in Africa. "This is what's happening in Africa. African L.G.B.T. persons are just collateral damage to U.S. politics on both ends."

In late 2011, the Obama administration made the promotion of gay rights an integral part of American foreign policy. Since then, it has pushed for the decriminalization of homosexuality overseas, working with the United Nations and private groups.

Since 2012, U.S.A.I.D. has spent more than $700 million on the effort globally, starting new programs related to gay rights and incorporating the promotion of such rights into existing ones, according to American officials. Agency officials declined to release details of the programs in Africa, citing security concerns.

But tying developmental assistance to gay rights has fueled anger across the continent. After Uganda's president signed a tough anti-gay law last year, for example, the Obama administration announced that some aid money for the Ugandan police and health agencies would be cut off or redirected.

"This is an abuse of power, and that's why many are turning around and saying, 'Keep your money,' " said the Rev. George Ehusani, former secretary general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, adding that Nigerian Catholic charities had stopped applying for American government grants that promote gay rights.

For many African activists, American backing is a double-edged sword.

At the office of the Initiative for Equal Rights here, a small community center has served as an oasis for gay Nigerians in this megalopolis. But they were unsettled by the red, white and blue stickers once posted throughout the hall.

The stickers — with the message, "U.S.A.I.D. From the American people" — underscored the Nigerian gay rights movement's financial dependence on the West. For some, they also inadvertently gave credence to the widely held belief in Africa that homosexuality is a foreign lifestyle foisted on the continent.

"It really affected our advocacy efforts," said Michael Akanji, director of programming for the group. The group was granted a waiver by the aid agency to remove the stickers late last year.

One of the founders of Nigeria's gay rights movement, Dorothy Aken'Ova, began organizing in the mid-1990s after living in France, where she saw broad acceptance of gay people. In 2000, she opened the International Center for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights, which provides services for gay men and lesbians in Minna.

"There was a veil of silence in the country over L.G.B.T. issues," Ms. Aken'Ova said, "and people could even boldly hit their chest and say there are no gays in Nigeria and no lesbians in Nigeria. I knew that was wrong."

In the early 2000s, an American foundation gave a handful of Nigerian activists support, she said, "so that we can make the movement political."

But over time, the growing recognition of and pressure for gay rights in the West led to a reaction in Nigeria. Calling homosexuality "unnatural" and "un-African," Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, backed an anti-gay bill in 2005 that seemed to be going nowhere.

But as the United States and other Western governments fiercely condemned the bill — and a similar one in Uganda — Father Ehusani, Ms. Okafor and others lobbied aggressively in support of it. Lawmakers, reacting to what they felt was egregious interference by the West, rallied behind it. The legislation passed unanimously in 2013, the first bill to do so since the end of military rule in 1999.

In what was considered a major setback to gay rights in Africa, Nigeria's former president, Goodluck Jonathan, signed the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act into law in January 2014.

In retrospect, Father Ehusani said that Nigeria's law was too punitive and an "overkill." Without the American pressure, he said, "the law would not have come in the form in which it did."

Many African activists say that efforts should be focused on quietly educating the public about homosexuality and changing social attitudes.

The Initiative for Equal Rights, the group Mr. Azeez volunteers for, is planning to raise private funds inside Nigeria for the first time to reduce its foreign dependence.

"Then it actually feels like we're owning the process," said Pamela Adie, who sits on its fund-raising board.

Ms. Adie, 31, lived in the United States for several years and returned to Nigeria last year to work in ExxonMobil's communications department. She said that despite the 2014 law, the early signs of a gay culture were emerging, at least in parts of Lagos.

Now, she said, "masculine-identifying" women like herself were freer in the way they dress. "That never happened 10 years ago," she said. "Now people are more open. They might not come out and say they are L.G.B.T., but you can tell."

Ms. Adie and a couple of hundred others recently attended the 10th anniversary party of the Initiative for Equal Rights, an event that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago.

Abayomi Shoyinka, 27, a fashion blogger who went to the party, said later that pushing "too fast" and "too hard" for gay rights could only make things "bad or worse."

"As time goes on, we will get there," Mr. Shoyinka said. "The patient dog eats the fattest bone."
 

Dec 20, 2015 (Nuba Reports/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) – Roughly 70,000 refugees have resettled in South Sudan's Yida camp just over the Sudan border, and they may soon be forced to start their lives over once again.

They have come to Yida to escape ongoing war in the Nuba Mountains between Sudan's armed forces and a rebel group since it began in 2011. Fighting continues; Nuba Reports documented 2,000 bombs dropped in civilian areas last year alone. Come June next year, the settlement where the Nuba people have started markets, developed farms, built schools and even an airstrip, will be effectively shut and refugees relocated to other camps, says the UN.

The refugees have struggled to build their lives anew since fleeing war. "We came from Nuba with nothing and our homes were destroyed. We were forced to come to a different country to survive," explains Ali Kuku Mekki, Paramount Chief at Yida. Before NGOs and the UN started serving the refugee population there, Nuba refugees had set up Yida camp -replete with a bustling market, now the largest in Unity State, as well as volunteer-run schools. "We have farms and businesses that help us provide what we need, then the UN tells us close your things and stop your work-you must move again," Mekki told Nuba Reports.

During a recent consultative meeting between the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, and Yida residents, UNHCR delegate Nigora Kadirhojaeva told Yida residents the camp would be closed in mid June, according to Al Nour Salih, Chairman of the Yida Refugee Council who attended the meeting. Only select vulnerable groups such as the elderly and disabled would receive limited, non-food supplies such as mosquito nets and plastic sheeting, he added.

Instead, the UN agency and South Sudan's Refugee Affairs Commission are pushing Yida residents to Ajuong Thok and another camp yet to be completed, Pamir, where food rations and other services are provided, UNHCR South Sudan Representative Juliette Stevenson told Nuba Reports. Currently registration of new arrivals to Yida continues, Stevenson added, but since 2013 food rations are only provided to newcomers if they relocate to Ajuong Thok camp.

UNHCR and the Government of South Sudan say Yida has never been an officially recognized refugee camp and never can be, despite the 70,166 refugees registered there. This is for two main reasons, says Rocco Nuri, Public Information/Communications Officer at UNHCR: the camp's proximity to the Sudan-South Sudan border, and "armed elements" in the camp.

Yida is 14 kilometers from the Sudan-South Sudan border, less than the 50-kilometers minimum set by UN guidelines. But Ajuong Thok is just 2 kms further away than Yida and Pamir, based on a UNHCR map, is a similar distance from the border.

The negligible difference in kilometers between the camps not only fails to meet the UN guidelines, but the location of the alternative camps is less secure, according to Yida residents. "The UN told us that Yida is too close to the border and for that reason it is insecure. That is why we must move," Mekki said. "But for us from Nuba we see Yida as much more secure than other places." Ajuong Thok is only 45 km from a Sudanese government army base, according to the Deputy Chairman of the Yida Refugee Council, Ismail Hussein, the very people Yida refugees fled from in the first place. The upcoming Pamir camp is also located in an area with several nomadic tribes who are in conflict with Yida residents, Hussein added. "You find people and tribes who kicked us out of our homeland in the Nuba Mountains," Hussein said, "It is also [in an area] controlled by South Sudanese rebel forces so it is not safe and not in the hands of the government of South Sudan. These two reasons made us scared to go to Pamir." In comparison, the Yida camp provides an escape route that Nuba refugees think safe to make their way home should they want to, several Yida residents told Nuba Reports.

UNHCR, however, claim there are armed elements operating in Yida camp making it unsafe for refugees or humanitarians to operate there. According to Stevenson, Yida is too close to a border that is in dispute between Sudan and South Sudan and its militarization by armed groups compromises its suitability as a refugee site. Refugee Chairman Salih, however, disputes this claim. Salih concedes that armed groups from Darfur, western Sudan, were present in Yida camp in the past but claims the South Sudan army forced the armed groups to leave the camp and "followed afer the armed group to make sure they left."

A dispute over the resources available for refugees in Yida as opposed to Ajuong Thok persists. "Having seen Yida and Ajuong Thok, I'd live in Ajuong Thok because of the services, " Nuri said. "Education is free, better health care replete with a primary healthcare clinic and people in need of referral are transferred to Pariang County Hospital which we are supporting." Based on UNHCR data, water accessibility is better in Yida but malnutrition and child mortality rates remain lower in Ajuong Thok in comparison to Yida. But Salih and other Yida residents told Nuba Reports those living in Ajuong Thok lack adequate food and face poor health services.

The key difference for the Nuba refugees between the two camps concerns self reliance: the host community allows Yida residents to farm and set up markets while those in Ajuong Thok do not, Salih told Nuba Reports. "Yida is different," he adds, "the host community here gives refugees a chance to farm and get charcoal, in Ajuong Thok our people are not allowed outside [the camp], even if to get grass or something."

Farming is increasingly important for the refugees to have enough to eat as the World Food Programme (WFP) struggles with funding and cuts food rations, WFP Senior Regional Spokeswoman Chaliss McDonough told Nuba Reports. Funding shortfalls have forced WFP to reduce the size of rations for refugees in South Sudan by 30 percent since August, she added.

Yida refugee Fadila Kafi Jamus, a 35-year old mother of 6 from Logori, Nuba Mountains, said she relies on farming to feed her family and to sell extra produce for salt, soap and clothes for her children. "The food from the UN is not enough for my family," she said, "but with the food that I farmed it will be enough for my children and I."

Concerns over overpopulation of Yida is another reason cited by UNHCR. In a 2013 interview with UNHCR's former head of operations in Unity State, Marie-Helene Verney, voiced their concerns of having potentially 100,000 refugees in one place. "We know what that means from other countries, we know the problems of health, with availability of water, with security the problems that come with that [overpopulation] and we fear the same for Yida too."

But Yida residents are understandably wary of relocation due to past experience. In 2012, UNHCR asked Yida's 30,000 residents to move to another refugee camp, Nyeli. The local refugee council insisted that the land in Nyeli was prone to flooding, and would soon be a swamp, virtually unlivable, according to several Yida residents. But UN officials pushed ahead, and the small fraction that moved were again homeless just one year later when flooding made Nyeli inhabitable and the UN was forced to close the camp.

As it stands, many in Yida remain in a state of limbo -unsure whether they can continue harvesting and building or whether they must pack up once more for another settlement. "We as Nuba flourished in this place, each has their own work, some ar farming and traders stated their business," said Al-Kheir Mojid, a Yida refugee and trader. "And now when the UN asked us to move, it will make us struggle again."
 

KAMPALA, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) – Three emergencies in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) and South Sudan have push the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda to astronomical levels, forcing the east African country to look up to donors for support.

Uganda is currently host to 510,973 refugees and asylum-seekers (as of Dec. 10), making it the third largest refugee hosting country in the region after Ethiopia and Kenya, and the eighth largest in the world, UN Refugee Agency figures show.

This is the biggest number of refugees and asylum seekers the country has hosted in its history. The main countries of origin for refugees and asylum seekers are Burundi, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.

A new global report released on Friday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows that the increasing number of people being forced to flee their homes around the world means 2015 is likely to exceed all previous records for global forced displacement.

The report 'UNHCR's Mid-Year Trends 2015' shows that in 2015 alone, more than 90,000 people have fled to Uganda to escape violence and human rights abuses in South Sudan, the DR Congo and Burundi.

"Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything," said Antonio Guterres, High Commissioner for Refugees while speaking about the refugee situation globally.

Musa Ecweru, Uganda's minister of state for disaster preparedness and refugees said the country needs all the support from international community as it grapples with the biggest number of refugees it has hosted.

"At a time when our country is hosting more refugees than ever before, it is vital that our international partners work with us to ensure support is provided to our neighbors in need," he said.

Responding to the humanitarian appeal made by Uganda and relief agencies, Britain announced this week that it has provided a total of 17.6 million U.S. dollars in support of the refugee response this year.

The funding has been used to provide life-saving assistance in the form of food, shelter, immunizations and medical care, clean water and sanitary facilities. Schools, transit centers and community facilities have been also constructed.

Uganda is widely recognized as having progressive and forward-thinking refugee and asylum policies. Upon receiving refugee status, refugees are settled in villages integrated within local host communities.

"Uganda is pioneering a model of refugee protection that serves as an inspiration for other countries to follow, not only in the region, but across the globe," said Neimah Warsame, UNHCR Representative to Uganda.

While on a regional tour this week, James Duddridge, British minister for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office told reporters that the problem of refugees needs to be addressed at the source. He said the root causes of the refugee crisis must be addressed.

Duddridge was in the region on a tour that took him to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to help find a solution that will end the Burundi crisis that has left scores dead and thousands fleeing the East African country since April this year.