By CHRISTABEL LIGAMI

Ethiopia has replaced Kenya as the largest refugee-hosting country worldwide with a total of 587,700 refugees, and simultaneously as the largest recipient in sub- Saharan Africa, a new report by UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows.

This shift, the report says, was due to the mass inflow of 159,000 South Sudanese refugees during the first half of 2014.

With a total of 537,000 refugees, Kenya was the second largest host country on the continent by mid-year, followed by Chad with 454,900 refugees.

However, worldwide Kenya and Uganda were among the top 10 major refugee-hosting countries in the world in 2014.

Uganda hosted up to 200,000 refugees in 2012, 250,000 in 2013 and 350,000 in 2014.

The report shows that fighting in both South Sudan and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo also affected Uganda.

“By mid-year, Uganda was the ninth largest host country of refugees worldwide, with 358,500 persons, its highest level on record,” said the report.
The top 10 refugee-hosting countries combined hosted 58 per cent of all refugees under UNHCR ’s mandate.

Somalis remained the third largest refugee group worldwide with 1.1 million persons by mid-2014, mainly in Kenya (425,700), Ethiopia (244,300), and Yemen (234,800).

“The overall figure dropped by about 41,000 persons, mainly because of the spontaneous return of 10,000 Somalis and a verification exercise conducted among Somali refugees in Kenyan refugee camps,” said the report.

According to the report more than 1.4 million persons were newly displaced across international borders during the first half of 2014. The overwhelming majority found refuge in neighbouring countries.

New and continuing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia contributed to the displacement of an estimated 5.5 million people over the first half of 2014, bringing the number of people under the care of the UN’s refugee agency to an almost 20-year high.

Of the 5.5 million people displaced in the first half of 2014, 1.4 million fled across international borders.

Ethiopia and Pakistan bear the greatest economic strain of the world’s biggest refugee-hosting countries, while Lebanon and Jordan host the most refugees relative to the size of their own population.

The UN however says that as long as the international community continues to fail to find political solutions to existing conflicts and to prevent new ones from starting, there will continue to have to deal with the dramatic humanitarian consequences.

“Enhanced international solidarity is a must if we want to avoid the risk of more and more vulnerable people being left without proper support,” said the UN in the report.

Source: The East African