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OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
By the end of March 2025, the East and Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region hosted some 5.7 million refugees and asylum-seekers and 19 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), totalling to 24.7 million displaced people. Majority of the refugees and asylum-seekers were hosted in Uganda (1.9 million), Ethiopia (1.1 million), Kenya (843,000) and Sudan (842,000). Internally displaced persons were mainly in Sudan (11.3 million), Somalia (3.9 million), Ethiopia (1.9 million), South Sudan (1.8 million) and Burundi (92,000). Some 125,000 refugees had been documented as having returned to their countries of origin in 2025.
The region continues to grapple with multiple crises. For instance, the crisis in Sudan has added another layer of complexity and humanitarian urgency to a region already grappling with a series of overlapping crises, including protracted conflicts, chronic insecurity, and forced displacement. Neighboring countries continue to bear the brunt of the refugee crisis.
In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), armed conflict between government forces and rebels continued displacing populations into Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Fighting intensified in January, with more people displaced as this protracted conflict persists. Reception and life-saving assistance, community-based protection and protection monitoring, analysis and reporting, health, education and livelihoods remain key priority response areas in the countries of asylum.