Uganda: Is Uganda Really a 'Refugee Paradise'?

29 July 2017
opinion

In April the Dutch public broadcasting agency NOS published a story on Uganda "the refugee paradise". The article was titiled: "Welcome refugee! Uganda welcomes you with open arms!" A South Sudanese colleague frowned after reading the translated article. "How can they see this as paradise?" he asked. "Don't they know that people who are here are the ones who are not able to go somewhere else? Live in the city, or perhaps another country? There is no such thing as a paradise here."

Uganda's refugee policy has received much media coverage in recent months. The country is currently hosting around 1.2 million refugees from neighbouring South Sudan, which is involved in a brutal, and endless, civil war. While a number of critical articles were also published on the difficulties that South Sudanese refugees have been facing, most of the coverage has focused on Uganda's hospitality. The range of superlatives used to describe the openness of both the government and the population of Uganda was especially eye-catching. Articles were, for example, titled "Uganda's example to the world", "Uganda may be best place in the world to be a refugee", "Uganda's lesson in how to treat refugees" and so on.

...

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.