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UN cuts food aid to refugees in Uganda as funds dwindle

Xinhua, August 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

UN relief agencies in Uganda have warned that they are cutting food aid to refugees in the east African country by 50 percent due to funding shortages.

The agencies in a joint statement with the Ugandan government on Wednesday said up to 200,000 refugees who arrived in the country prior to July 2015 would be affected by the move.

"Low levels of funding, together with a large number of new arrivals fleeing to Uganda from South Sudan since July 7, has left the refugee response with no choice but to re-prioritize their focus on those refugees in greatest need," the statement said.

The World Food Program (WFP) said about 7 million U.S. dollars is needed every month to provide life-saving food assistance to refugees in Uganda. The food aid agency said an additional 20 million dollars is need to restore full food rations to the refugees for the rest of the year.

"We have done everything we can to avoid this, but we have been left with no option but to reduce food assistance for many of the refugees in Uganda, in order to stretch available resources and prioritize the most vulnerable new arrivals," said Mike Sackett, WFP's acting Country Director for Uganda.

"We hope that this is temporary, and we are working as hard as we can to raise the resources needed to restore the full level of food assistance for as many refugees as possible," he added.

Bornwell Kantande, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative in Uganda, said although there have been generous donations from the international community, more is needed to save the dire situation.

Humanitarian agencies say the escalating fighting in neighboring South Sudan is worsening the already severely underfunded relief response.

According to UNHCR, since the outbreak of violence in Juba, South Sudan capital on July 8, more than 70,000 people have crossed the border into Uganda.

Uganda is host to more than 600,000 refugees and asylum seekers, making it the third-largest refugee hosting country in Africa and the eighth-largest in the world. Endit