According to the Uganda Humanitarian Situation Report by the UNICEF, 37% of the refugees in the country are adult men, raising a number of protection and labor concerns for women and children.
This report comes after the fighting in South Sudan which displaced around 740,000 people within South Sudan, and led to the outflow of asylum seekers into neighboring countries.
Uganda has received the majority of them, registering more than 96,000 South Sudanese refugees between December 16th and the beginning of April. Uganda has a long history of receiving and hosting asylum seekers from South Sudan.
The report says after a temporary decline in daily arrival rates in February, Uganda received more than 20,000 South Sudanese refugees in March. Contingency planning figures (100,000) will soon be surpassed, and the new operational planning figure is 150,000. The UNCT is currently reviewing a range of scenarios that could result in a significantly higher number of refugees fleeing to Uganda.
High levels of malnutrition, SAM (4.5%), GAM (19.9%), continue to be a grave concern as UNICEF scales up its nutrition support to refugees and host communities in the target districts.
The existing settlements in Adjumani are nearing full-capacity. The government is having an increasingly difficult time securing additional land in the district and has put plans in place to move refugees to Moyo and Arua if no additional land can be secured in Adjumani.
UNICEF is actively partnering with refugees and host communities by providing interventions that benefit both—for example by the installation of dual-use boreholes and supporting schools attended by both Sudanese and Ugandan students
