- Title: South Sudan's refugees see little chance of peace
- Date: 19th June 2017
- Summary: PAGIRINYA, UGANDA (JUNE 16, 2017) (REUTERS) DRONE FOOTAGE OF PAGIRINYA REFUGEE SETTLEMENT IN NORTHERN UGANDA PALABEK, UGANDA (JUNE 16, 2017) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SHELTERS AT PALABEK REFUGEE SETTLEMENT MARIA LALUM, A SOUTH SUDANESE REFUGEE COOKING OUTSIDE HER HOUSE LALUM'S GRANDCHILDREN MORE OF LALUM COOKING (SOUNDBITE) (Acholi) MARIA LALUM, SOUTH SUDANESE REFUGEE, SAYING: "I crossed into Uganda at the beginning of this year when government soldiers started attacking us. We just heard gun shots and took to the forest for safety. My children and grandchildren scattered off in different directions and we were reunited just recently in this camp." REFUGEES GOING ABOUT THEIR CHORES IN SETTLEMENT YOUNG BOY IN SETTLEMENT CHILD EATING FROM POT (SOUNDBITE) (Acholi) MARIA LALUM, SOUTH SUDANESE REFUGEE, SAYING: "This is the third time I am being made to run away from my country. The first time was during the struggle against the north and now this, all my children and my grandchildren you are seeing here were born in camps. It is only proper leadership that can take me back there and I do not think that will happen in my lifetime. Believe, I will not pack-up any time soon to go there, I'd rather die here." TWO MEN WALKING IN SETTLEMENT GROUP OF CHILDREN WALKING THROUGH SETTLEMENT (SOUNDBITE) (Acholi) MARIA LALUM, SOUTH SUDANESE REFUGEE, SAYING: "We have major problems here; we do not have materials to construct shelters and just imagine I only get four kilograms of maize flour a week to feed eight people. There is food shortage here; all we get is maize meal, beans and cooking oil." MORE OF SETTLEMENT GROUP OF MEN ROOFING A SHELTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) PHILIP OKOT BEN CARSON, SOUTH SUDANESE REFUGEE, SAYING: "We the children who are outside the country, our hope was for the development of our country and to make good relationship and business along with our neighbors, but they have to really see the struggle of the people, the suffering." VARIOUS OF REFUGEES WAITING TO BE REGISTERED AT UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSION FOR REFUGEES' HOLDING AREA CHILD WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) KHAMIS KHAMIS, HEAD OF FIELD OFFICE, UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSION FOR REFUGEES, SAYING: "When you integrate refugees with the host population, you cannot discriminate. You want that ability to provide services to, to both host populations and refugees at the same time. Given the economic situations in all our developing world, countries we are already struggling." VARIOUS OF FOOD MARKET IN SETTLEMENT VARIOUS OF UGANDANS AND SOUTH SUDANESE REFUGEES SELLING GROCERIES IN MARKET (SOUNDBITE) (English) KHAMIS KHAMIS, HEAD OF FIELD OFFICE, UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSION FOR REFUGEES, SAYING: "We always work towards getting funding and also the government is trying its best to do what it can given the circumstances to ensure the key essential services are provided such as healthcare, water, education and and you can imagine this is a big deal - it is not easy." GENERAL VIEWS OF SETTLEMENT
- Embargoed: 3rd July 2017 08:15
- Keywords: Refugee day Uganda South Sudan South sudanese refugee settlement
- Location: PAGIRINYA AND PALABEK, UGANDA
- City: PAGIRINYA AND PALABEK, UGANDA
- Country: Uganda
- Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0016LY0953
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: When government soldiers came to Pajok, a town in South Sudan close to the Uganda border in April this year, Maria Lalum was caught in crossfire as the soldiers pursued fought rebel forces allied to ousted vice president Riek Machar. She survived by hiding in the forest for five days before crossing into neighboring Uganda.
Lalum, a 72-year-old grandmother says this is the third time she has had to flee the war-torn east African nation and now she sees little hope in South Sudan's warring leaders, President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and his former deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, ever healing their personal and tribal animosity that has split South Sudan just two years after it became the world's youngest nation.
Overall, the fighting has uprooted more than 3 million South Sudanese, and by July 5.5 million - nearly half the population - are unlikely to have a reliable food supply, according to the United Nations.
Here in Palabek refugee settlement in northern Uganda, Lalum lives in land previously untouched since the 1990s due to the murderous rampages of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. The land is now a sprawl of tarpaulin shacks housing hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese fleeing a three-year civil war that has triggered the biggest cross-border exodus in Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Villagers in the impoverished border regions have donated land to refugees on the expectation that the foreign donor funds that support the refugees will also help the villages in the form of shared public services such as schools, roads, wells and clinics. A Ugandan law passed in 2006, guaranteeing refugees freedom of movement, employment rights and access to public clinics and schools has made the country a frequent sanctuary for those fleeing nearby conflicts.
Each family is also given a 30m x 30m plot of land on which to build huts, and a larger 100m x 100m plot on which to grow subsistence crops, to make them self-sufficient as quickly as possible. However, the influx of refugees is testing Uganda's generosity with pundits saying that the system of accommodating refugees, routinely touted as one of the world's most progressive, is about to burst in its seams.
Ugandan government officials and aid agencies say the large influx has stretched available resources. Refugees say they are getting half of the standard monthly food ration of 12 kg of maize and 4 kg of beans. The United Nations Refugee Agency says it has only secured just 10 percent of the estimated $300 million required for the South Sudanese refugees in Uganda this year, leaving it unable to meet the basic needs of refugees or locals.
The Agency also said the problem is that aid flows are not keeping up with the scale of the exodus from South Sudan - at least 832,000 have arrived in Uganda since fighting erupted in July last year - and the system is tottering, adding that Uganda's crisis was also competing with other humanitarian disasters in Africa, most notably drought in Somalia and food shortages in northeast Nigeria stemming from Boko Haram's six-year jihadist insurgency. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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