Attachments
SITUATION ANALYSIS
Description of the crisis
Eastern DRC remained unpredictable with reports of continued fighting throughout the appeal period between the rebels and the Government forces. This fighting that erupted on 28 March 2022 in DRC northern Kivu area necessitating the launch of this emergency appeal displaced 161,063 cumulatively. These people entered Uganda through three border points of Kisoro, Bundibugyo, and Kasese with most of the crossings happening in the Kasoro and Bundibugyo districts. There are established refugee hosting/transit centers in the three districts designed to accommodate refugees for a few days before relocating them to settlement centers, however, eight months into the fighting, thousands of refugees were still hosted in the transit centers where URCS through this emergency appeal continued to offer humanitarian assistance. Particularly, the holding capacity at Nyakabande transit centre, Kisoro district.
The three entry points are described below.
Kisoro District
The end of March 2023 marked one year since the Refugee Influx started in Kisoro – Southwest Uganda. Fighting in Northern Kivu and Ituri in DRC on March 28, 2022, forced people to flee to Uganda through the Bunagana border and settle in Kisoro district. These were mainly children, women, and young people. A day after the fighting erupted on the 29th of July 2022, an estimated 41,733 individuals (21,582 Households) were received at both the holding and transit centers. On 31st October 2022, the holding center was officially closed, and refugees were encouraged to accept to be resettled in Nakivale Refugee Settlement as a standard practice.
By the 31st of December 2022, Nyakabande alone had cumulatively received 73,157 refugees that crossed through Kisoro while over 33,645 (16,069 Households) had been relocated to the settlement in Nakivale. The population size at Nyakabande continued to reduce and consequently a number of interventions scaled down including the decommissioning of major infrastructures that at the holding center that is currently no longer in use. As of 23/02/2023, the remaining facility – Nyakabande Transit Centre had a capacity of 825 people, yet the actual numbers realized at any given time would rise up to 2,500.
As much as there were efforts to move refugees to Nakivaale settlement, many of them remained in the host communities competing for limited essential and social services like water, health, food, and sanitation. To date, even as the operation closes, the situation in DRC remains unpredictable with reports of continued fighting between the M23 rebels and forces loyal to the DRC Government.
At the time of this reporting, the border between Uganda and DRC in Kisoro at Bunagana remains officially closed and still under the control of the M23 rebels. However, the asylum-seekers living among the host communities are allowed to cross to Congo to collect food items and look after their farms during the day. Kisoro district authorities, security organs, and the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) continue to monitor the situation.
Following the closure of Nyakabande holding center and consequent increase in the relocation of refugees to Nakivale, a number of partners prepositioned their response to Nakivale settlement. The Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) through this appeal conducted assessments in Nakivale settlement before expanding its services beyond the transit centres whose results were used in designing and implementing response activities.
Kasese District
Asylum seekers from the Eastern DRC-North-Kivu crossed into Uganda through Kitholhu, Karambi, and Mpondwe sub-counties in Kasese District on Sunday 3 April 2022. About 3,220 individuals/asylum seekers crossed to Uganda through various porous borders and temporarily resettled in the villages of Kisololo, Busigha, Kasinga, Kisebere, Kiraro, etc. in the Kasese district. Out of 3,220 refugees, 1,233 of them were officially registered at Bwera Holding Centre (Nyamambuka) which was established on 5 April 2022. The rest remained in host communities for fear of being relocated to refugee settlements. Emergency response services were offered to those refugees at Bwera Holding Center by responding agencies including UNHCR, UNWFP, Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), CAFOMI, Medical Teams International (MTI), ALIGHT, Uganda Red Cross Society, ICRC, AIRD, GEDA-Uganda, Kasese Scouts, Uganda Peoples Defense Force (UPDF) and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) among others.
In July 2022, attacks were made by Mai Mai rebels in Luma town in North Kivu and burnt down Luma Hospital killing over seven people. This forced asylum seekers to cross to Uganda in the villages of Kasinga, Kahuhu Kanyatsi, and Kiraro in the Kitholu sub-county in Bwera where they were hosted before relocation to Nakivale and Rwamwanja settlements. On the 26th of July, three killings were also reported across Lhubiriha in DRC putting Kasese District on high alert to receive more refugees as witnessed in April 2022.
The first holding center was at the Nyamambuka Catholic Church playground and was closed on 31st August 2022. The 1,500 Persons of Concern (PoC) who were at the old site were all registered and taken to Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement. The current site is in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Town Council which is 0.5km from the old one. It was opened on 01st September 2022 registering 15 – 20 PoCs weekly. It was later closed after two months. There were periodic attacks that culminated in the burning of a secondary school in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha reportedly by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in 2023. Several students lost their lives and the Uganda Army continued pursuing the armed group with the hope of rescuing abducted students.
Bundibugyo District
In March 2022 there was an ADF rebel attack on the people of Nobili, Njiapande, Kamango, and Ituri in DRC that gradually spread to areas of Bugando town, Gogo, Kitendera, Kikura, Kayanje, Kitemba in Butalinga border communities in DRC which border Bundibugyo district in Uganda. Since then, there have been on-and-off attacks on the people of DRC characterized by killings, burning houses, and looting of properties, among others forcing people to flee to Uganda through the 21 nearest porous border points mainly of Busunga, Bundingoma, Sindla, Kisuba, and Nyahuka in Bundibugyo District.
Bundibugyo continues to host clusters of refugees who come in and refused to be evacuated to the transit center and opt to stay with the host communities citing various reasons that are not favorable for them at the holding and settlement camps. From the latest assessments conducted by URCS and DDMC (District Disaster Management Committee), there are 29,243 refugees recorded to be living within Busunga, Bundingoma, Sindila, Kisuba, and Nyahuka sub-counties inside Bundibugyo District. The refugees keep crossing to and from Uganda, along the borderline. From 2022 to date, this has led to poor health, hygiene, and sanitation practices characterized by open defecation, poor waste disposal, poor water source management, lack of food leading to malnutrition among refugee children, safety/security issues, negative effects on the environment, Gender, and Protection. Within the operational period (2022/23), the URCS Team did Hygiene, Sanitation and Health promotion alongside PGI and CEA activities to build social cohesion among the refugees and the host communities. The situation remains hard with gaps in WASH especially sanitation. There is need for more latrines.