Uganda at breaking point as Bidi Bidi becomes world's largest refugee camp

Author(s)
Hattem, J.
Date published
03 Apr 2017
Publisher
The Guardian
Type
Articles
Keywords
Comms, media & information, Forced displacement and migration

The central reception area of the Imvepi refugee settlement, in northern Uganda, is packed to the brim. Thousands of people are crammed into a patch of land meant to hold just a fraction of the current load. They’ve been waiting for days, stuck in an administrative backlog the government of Uganda attributes to lack of funding and an unceasing stream of people from South Sudan.

Famine, economic collapse and years of fighting have forced people out of South Sudan faster than from any other nation on the planet. The stream of arrivals, who averaged 2,800 each day in March, has begun to take a toll on the country’s southern neighbour Uganda, host to roughly half of the 1.6 million people forced to flee their homes.