WATCH: Thousands flee South Sudan violence creating Africa's largest refugee crisis

20 February 2017 - 12:35 By REUTERS
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International humanitarian organisation says Uganda's refugee crisis is the largest refugee crisis in Africa and the third largest in the world. 

As refugees are fleeing from South Sudan's violence, Uganda currently faces the largest refugee crisis in Africa, a humanitarian agency said on Sunday (February 19).

Uganda country representative from Lutheran World Federation, Jesse Kamstra said there was complete lack of international attention on the unfolding humanitarian crisis in there.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, announced last week that more than 1.5 million people have now been forced to flee the country and seek safety in neighbouring countries.

  • Do more for South Sudan refugees, says a top UN officialThe international community must respond to the refugee crisis caused by fighting in South Sudan in the same way it responded to the crisis in Europe, the UN refugee chief said in Uganda on Monday. 

This makes South Sudan Africa's largest refugee crisis and the world's third-largest after Syria and Afghanistan with less attention and chronic levels of underfunding.

Women and children continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, making up 86 percent of refugees arriving in Uganda.

  • UN panel blames South Sudan leaders for Juba violenceA UN panel of experts has concluded that heavy fighting that engulfed South Sudan's capital Juba in July, forcing vice president and ex-rebel leader Riek Machar to flee, was "directed by the highest level" of the country's military. 

Currently Uganda is hosting a population of 740,000 refugees from South Sudan and majority of them have come since July last year.

South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan in 2011 but tensions between its many different ethnic groups quickly surfaced and civil war broke out in 2013.

Uganda is widely recognized as having progressive and forward-thinking refugee and asylum policies.

Upon receiving refugee status, refugees are provided with small areas of land in villages integrated within the local host community.

This pioneering approach is said to enhance social cohesion and allow both refugees and host communities to live together peacefully.

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