Uganda: Refugee influx, limited funding strains WFP response
Without US$50 million in fresh support, one million people could lose food assistance
By Didas Kisembo
Bullets cracked through the air one day in February as Odeta worked her land in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) restive east. She and her family dropped everything, fleeing their village of Buramba, in North Kivu province, and joining a massive exodus to safety.
“We jumped over bodies,” Odeta recalls as she and her children wait to register with UNHCR and local authorities at Nyakabande refugee centre in southwestern Uganda. “I saw things no one should see.”
Odeta counts among more than 54,000 refugees who have arrived in Uganda since January 2025, with over 34,000 of them from the DRC alone. Many of the others hail from South Sudan and Sudan; but this year, there are five times more new arrivals from the DRC compared with the past two years — severely straining the resources of a country that already hosts Africa’s largest refugee population, estimated at 1.8 million.
At transit points like Nyakabande, the World Food Programme (WFP) delivers hot meals and high-energy biscuits to the new arrivals, who are among some 1.6 million refugees in Uganda whom we support.
But years of limited funding for our overall refugee response in Uganda has already forced us to sharply cut food rations for moderately vulnerable longer-term refugees — to just over one-fifth the usual quantity. Without US$50 million in additional resources, WFP could be forced to cut lifesaving assistance entirely for almost one million refugees — both new and more longstanding ones — by May.
“We need more funding to continue delivering three meals a day at the transit centres and to maintain monthly food rations for refugees in the settlements,” says WFP Uganda field officer Caleb Mutabazi. “Without it, hunger will deepen, and so will the risk.”
Ugandan authorities are also worried.
“We are struggling to provide adequate accommodation for everyone,” says Pauline Irene Abina, the Government of Uganda’s Refugee Officer in the southwest. “The food supplies allocated by WFP are insufficient for the numbers we are seeing now, pushing us toward a potential crisis.”
The newcomers are packing places like Nyakabande, located at the foot of Mount Mugahinga, whose peak pierces the clouds. Originally designed for 850 people, the centre today shelters 5,000 and food supplies are running short.
Malnutrition is already spiking. A recent GAM (Global Acute Malnutrition) government survey carried out at the Nyakabande Transit Centre in mid-March 2025 found over 16 percent of people dangerously underfed, a steep rise from the under six percent average rate registered last year.
“Food keeps things stable,” says Daniel Kisaamo, who oversees the Nyakabande Transit Centre. “Take it away, and trouble starts fast.”
Many of the newcomers offer harrowing tales of their flight to safety — which sharply contrast with the calmness of their new home. Odeta and her four children walked 16 hours before crossing into Uganda, with fear in every step.
At Nyakabande, she is relieved at the absence of gunfire but worries about her husband, who is still missing. “We had lived through conflict before, but this time in February, it was unbearable,” says the 35-year-old mother, adding, “I’m not going back to Congo, it is too unstable. I won’t put my children at risk again.”
Another Nyakabande new arrival, Naomi, ran a bar in another village of DRC’s North Kivu province and traded potatoes and fish at the local market. In February, local militia killed her husband and three-year-old child.
Naomi escaped, walking for two days to Uganda, relying on strangers for food. “I left it all behind,” she says.
Today, she and other refugees are uncertain about their future.
As she watches her children play, Odeta worries about how to take care of them with no husband around. “I want them in school,” she says. But at least, she adds, “I can sleep without fear.”
