Aid cuts and Covid force Uganda refugees to brink of starvation

Nearly 500,000 refugees in Uganda are struggling to eat as a result of cuts to food aid and Covid-19 restrictions.

More than 91,000 people living in 13 refugee settlements around the country are experiencing extreme levels of hunger, according to the latest analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), published this week. More than 400,000 refugees are considered to be at crisis hunger levels.

More than 135,130 children are acutely malnourished and in urgent need of treatment.

The IPC expects the situation to deteriorate further if additional cuts to aid are made.

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.

Food rations to 1.4 million refugees cut in Uganda due to funding shortfall

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“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.”

The WFP has warned that it may have to make another 10% cut in aid this month.

Bidi Bidi, in northern Uganda, the world’s largest refugee settlement and home to more than 232,000 people, is the most seriously affected.

Daloum said the WFP needed $15.3m (£11.8m) to provide full rations to refugees living in settlements until the end of the year.

Activists have warned that the severe food shortages will push many of the refugees to the brink of starvation and will increase tensions within host communities.

In September, Uganda deployed security troops in the north-west region after clashes between local people and refugees at a water point led to the deaths of 10 people.

“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.”

He said the number of people facing food shortages was “a big concern for all food actors. 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 after fleeing their homes, they must not now become victims of the Covid-19, he added. “It’s double jeopardy for them.”