SOUTH SUDAN: South Sudan refugee influx burdens Ugandan government, says official
Uganda has received thirty thousand refugees in just three weeks and reception facilities are overflowing.
The new influx of South Sudan refugees is a huge burden to the government to provide social services to them, Titus Jogo, Ugandan Prime Minister’s Refugee official, told IRIN.
He added that Ugandan government is looking for additional resources to provide them with medical care, water, shelter and other basic necessities.
More than 30 thousand South Sudanese crossed into Uganda as of 24 July, fleeing fighting in the country between government troops and forces loyal to Dr Riek Machar.
Humanitarian agencies say the influx has severely enlarged the resources and capacity of refugee collection points, transit and reception centres in the north western Uganda.
By early December 2015, Uganda had become home to almost 511, thousand refugees and asylum seekers, making it the third largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, after Ethiopia and Kenya.
Meanwhile General Taban Deng Gai took oath of office on Tuesday as the First Vice President in the Transitional Government of National Unity, replacing Dr Riek Machar.
President Salva Kiir in his inaugural address calls for correction of mistakes that brought war after signing the agreement for people of South Sudan to remain in peace, Radio Bakhita reports.
In his acceptance speech, Gai claims that he stepped in as the leader of the SPLM-IO to fill a vacuum created by Dr. Machar’s absence to save South Sudan.
Taban Deng Gai, was a former chief negotiator of the SPLM-IO in the peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and became Minister of Mining.
He was endorsed as head of the SPLM-IO by a faction of senior party members in Juba, but Dr. Machar’s supporters say the move was illegal.
Source: CRN
