Fighting in Sudan may worsen the refugee funding gap in Uganda, this is according to, Esther Davinia Anyakun, the State Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees.
Uganda hosts more than 1,501,552 refugees, according to the refugees department in the office of the Prime Minister.
Out of those, about 857,322 are from South Sudan, 480,549 from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 62,169 from Eritrea, 40,501 from Burundi, 23,290 from Rwanda, 3,830 from Sudan, and 33 from Afghanistan among other countries.
Last month, fighting erupted in Sudan between the country’s national army led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy and fellow coup leader, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo ‘Hemedti’.
The former partners disagreed on plans to integrate RSF fighters into the mainstream Sudanese army.
Flagging off 407 refugees who have fled Eastern DR Congo over fighting between the government army and the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels from Nyakabande transit center in Kisoro district to Nakivale camp in Isingiro district, Anyakun said that Uganda faced a shortfall of funding to cater for refugees since the outbreak of war between Ukraine and Russia.
She says that in 2022, Uganda received 40 percent of the funding out of what was needed.
Anyakun says that they are worried that fighting in Sudan may worsen the situation since even the remaining agencies may decide to focus on Sudanese refugees. She also says that another worry is that some Sudanese refugees may flee to Uganda.
Anyakuna however says that Uganda will benefit from Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project (DRDIP), a World Bank-funded multi-regional project covering four countries in the East African Region with an objective of improving access to basic social services for refugee host district communities and settlements.