Hillary Onek, Uganda’s minister for refugees has instructed officials in the ministry to stop granting refugee status to people from countries “not experiencing war”.
Ugandan government said it has stopped granting asylum and refugee status to people from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia.
However, Abdullahi Halakhe, a senior advocate at the humanitarian organisation Refugees International, said Uganda’s directive was part of a larger global clampdown.
“For many refugees affected, this will be a massive blow,” he said.
“They cannot go back to their home country; they cannot have third-country resettlement; and they cannot be integrated in the country of refugees. They’re left in a limbo,” Halakhe said.
According to details, Uganda says its 2025 refugee response plan, budgeted at $968m, remains severely underfunded.
UNHCR says in August that only 25% had been secured, raising concerns over the country’s ability to sustain essential services and threatening to undo years of progress for its refugee population.
In February, the WFP cut food rations for a million people in the east African country amid a funding crisis after severe cuts in aid from the US and European countries, raising fears that refugees and asylum seekers would be pushed back into countries at war.
Onek put the blame on a lack of money. “The situation is dire, and it is our people who shoulder those costs,” he said.
“Uganda used to get U$240m per year from [the UN refugee agency] UNHCR, but with an increased refugee population of almost 2 million people, we now get less than U$100m,” Onek said, adding that this year, the country had received only U$18m (£14m).
Uganda hosts an asylum and refugee population of about 2 million– the largest in Africa – including more than 56,000 Eritreans, nearly 50,000 Somalis and about 16,000 Ethiopians, according to UNHCR. Many have fled forced conscription, political or religious persecution, and climate crisis-related crises.
