Thousands flee South Sudan violence to Uganda creating humanitarian crisis
By REUTERS
As refugees are fleeing from South Sudan's violence, Uganda currently faces the largest refugee crisis in Africa, a humanitarian agency said on Sunday (February 19).Uganda country representative from Lutheran World Federation, Jesse Kamstra said there was complete lack of international attention on the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Uganda."I don't know how many more thousands have to come and flee or die before the international community wakes up and realizes what is happening here on the ground," Kamstra said.UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, announced last week that more than 1.5 million people have now been forced to flee the country and seek safety in neighboring countries.This makes South Sudan Africa's largest refugee crisis and the world's third largest after Syria and Afghanistan with less attention and chronic levels of underfunding.With an extremely volatile security situation forcing more refugees to flee, the latest influx is straining the capacity of transit and reception centers, which are too small for the growing number of arrivals.Arriving refugees are first taken to a temporary reception center in Kuluba in northern Uganda, where refugees are registered by the government as soon as they arrive.They are provided with sleeping mats, blankets and sanitary materials, and children are immunized against measles and polio, while they await to be transferred to Palorinya settlement, which was opened last December.
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