Western countries should put more efforts into helping refugees hosted by Uganda in light of drastic funding shortages, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th March, 2019) Western countries should put more efforts into helping refugees hosted by Uganda in light of drastic funding shortages, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Monday."Rich countries have broken their promises of international responsibility-sharing for handling the global refugee crisis ... Unlike the US and many European countries, Uganda shouldered the so-called 'burden' of the global refugee crisis, and opened its borders without complaint and showed humanity to their neighbours when others wouldn't. Still, there have been damaging cuts in life-saving aid by the international community, who are shamefully neglecting this growing crisis," Adam Bouloukos, Uganda's country director for the NRC, said in a statement.
A response plan for the refugee crisis in Uganda in 2018 was estimated at $220 million, but only 40 percent of the plan was funded, the NRC underlined.
"In some ways, Uganda is a victim of the international community's perception that it could cope with the influx of refugees. But nothing could be further from the truth. Uganda is already struggling with a huge range of social and economic challenges. The refugee population adds to those challenges and as such, the country needs support to address the massive needs," Bouloukos stressed.
Uganda hosts almost 1.5 million refugees, 75 percent of whom are from South Sudan, which was mired in civil war for years. Moreover, the influx of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been increasing lately, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
