Refugees now a threat to host communities, says minister
By Sylvia Katushabe
The Minister of Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, Mr Hilary Onek, has said life is getting harder for refugees in settlements and they have become a threat to host communities.
Mr Onek explained that the recent food aid cuts to Uganda by the World Food Programme (WFP) have greatly affected the quality of refugees’ lives in the country, which has forced them to start engaging in criminality within the host communities.
He noted that food aid was cut to at least 30 percent, meaning that the refugees now have one meal a day.
“We now have challenges of keeping law and order. Managing refugees is becoming difficult because they don’t have food, so they are forced into criminality,”Mr Onek said.
He added: “You find that they start stealing people’s property, food and uprooting cassava and harvesting food in people’s gardens, they are provoking the communities into disliking having refugees around them.
The minister was speaking during the inauguration of the five members of the Refugees Appeal Board at the Office of the Prime Minister in Kampala on Friday
