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Uganda + 4 more

UNICEF Uganda Humanitarian Situation Report - 1-30 September 2017

Attachments

Highlights

  • 1,355,764 refugees are being hosted by Uganda as of end August. 61 percent of the refugees are children under 18 years of age and 82 percent are women and children. Of the total, 1,021,903 people are refugees from South Sudan.

  • The second rainy season reached its peak in the month of September in most parts of the country causing destructive flooding, landslides, wind and hailstorms affecting plantations, crops and displacing people in the 13 affected districts.

  • Over 6 million children aged 0-59 months in 73 high risk districts including refugee hosting districts were immunized with over 100 percent coverage against Polio through a successful campaign conducted by UNICEF and Ministry of Health in September as part of the polio endgame strategy.

  • Cumulatively, UNICEF and its partners are reaching over 6,000 refugee children (out of 15,000 overall reached by the sector) with early childhood development (ECD) services, in Yumbe district. Due to limited funding, an estimated 28,000 ECD age children are still out of school in Bidibidi settlement.

  • The UNICEF Child Protection response remains underfunded with only 14 percent of humanitarian funding needs met. Due to the low funding level, UNICEF is unable to meet the critical protection needs of emergency affected children including essential psychosocial support.

Situation in Numbers

1.5 million of children in need of humanitarian assistance

2.4 million of people in need

827,000 of refugee children

1,355 million # of refugees

UNICEF Appeal 2017 US$ 52.87 million

Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs

Refugees: According to the Department of Refugees in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and UNHCR interagency reports, there are 1,355,764 refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda as of end August 2017. 1,021,903 are South Sudanese, 225,755 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 37,349 from Burundi, 34,963 Somalis and 35,794 are refugees from other countries. The total regional South Sudan refugees are over 2 million, out of which over half are hosted in Uganda. 964 refugees from DRC were received at the Nyakabande transit centre in September (as of 24 September) which is half the total number received in August. The average daily arrival rate was 47 individuals.

Burundian new arrivals were received at Kabazana Reception Centre. They mainly came through the border points of Mutukula (144), Mirama Hills (190), Katuna (11) and Bunagana (08). There is a steady decline in Burundian refugee numbers from 1,098 in March, 958 in April, 560 in May, 387 in July and 353 in August.

In the month of September, the number of daily arrivals from South Sudan reduced to 498 people. Compared to August, influx is comparatively low. The majority of newly arrived refugees were from Lunu, Ombachi and Kedilla regions of South Sudan. They cited continuing fighting between Government forces and rebels, coupled with limited access to basic necessities including food, shelter, education and health as their main reasons for leaving their country.

The inter-agency priorities in response to the South Sudan refugee crisis include: a) focus on stabilisation of new settlement and exit from emergency mode through better water trucking management and longer-term efforts to end water trucking, b) Clearance of registration backlog and c) Integrated planning with development actors and authorities to achieve integrated service delivery. There are urgent needs for repair of shelters following the destructive rains and additional risk of a cholera outbreak. UNICEF is part of the interagency efforts to prepare the Uganda Integrated Refugee Response Plan (I-RRP) for 2018 coordinated by UNHCR and OPM. For the first time, the I-RRP will cover all major refugee populations hosted by Uganda.

Given the severity of the South Sudanese refugee influx, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has chosen Uganda as one of the countries to benefit from ECW First Response Window allocations amounting to US$ 3.3 million. UNICEF, as part of the ECW secretariat in Uganda together with UNHCR, Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES), OPM, participated in screening and reviewing proposals from grant recipient agencies that will benefit from this funding which is targeting South Sudanese refugees. A follow up mission from the ECW Headquarters took place in September to discuss the multi-year refugee education response plan as a way of securing long term support to refugee education response in Uganda. UNICEF is one of the agencies leading the task team in drafting the multi-year response plan.

Frequent wind damage of temporary ECD classrooms and latrines have caused education access gaps. Most centres do not have water points especially in Adjumani and Ofua IV in Rhino Camp which creates challenges for caregivers as they have to leave children unattended to go and look for water from the boreholes within the communities.

Food security in Karamoja region: In this reporting period, crops have performed better compared to the same period in 2016 in Karamoja region. The rainfall is reported to be above average. The number of children newly admitted into SAM treatment programmes— (Outpatient and Inpatient) decreased from 1,012 in July 2017 to 786 in August 2017. Similarly, the new admissions into community based supplementary feeding programme decreased from 12,453 to 11,216 in the same period last year.