Hunger grips Sudan refugees in Uganda
ADJUMANI, Uganda — When the refugees arrive at this camp near the border with South Sudan, the beans provided by the United Nations are their only source of protein. There is no milk, not even for the toddlers with distended bellies who tightly hold onto their mothers’ skirts in the intense afternoon heat.
Now, less than two months since a new outbreak of violence in South Sudan sent a surge of about 70,000 refugees into this neighboring East African country, the U.N. and its partners are struggling to feed them. Last month, the U.N. announced that South Sudanese refugees who arrived in Uganda before this latest wave would see food rations or cash allowance cut in half.
As the U.N. refugee chief visited Monday, some refugees held up placards demanding better rations and a chance to move out of overcrowded camps.
The refugees are running “on empty stomachs,” they said in a memo they presented to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
The emergency could become a disaster if things go out of control, Grandi said. “The resources are still insufficient.”
Close to one million people have fled South Sudan since civil war began in December 2013, and a peace deal reached a year ago has been repeatedly violated. Tens of thousands have been killed.
Nyumanzi Transit Center, built to hold 2,000 refugees before they can be sent to a more permanent settlement, is now home to more than 7,000 newcomers, most of them women and children. They live in crowded structures of tarpaulin that bake like furnaces in the sun.
There are not enough toilets and water sources. Earlier this month, a cholera outbreak in some refugee centers infected