KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – Uganda is at a “breaking point” as almost 3,000 South Sudanese refugees pour into the country every day, the United Nations refugee chief and Uganda’s government said Thursday, calling for international help to support over 800,000 people now sheltering there.
The U.N. has called it the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.
More than 570,000 refugees have arrived from South Sudan since July – and the number could pass one million by the middle of this year, the joint statement by U.N. chief Filippo Grandi and Uganda’s government said.
“We are at breaking point. Uganda cannot handle Africa’s largest refugee crisis alone,” Grandi said. “The lack of international attention to the suffering of the South Sudanese people is failing some of the most vulnerable people in the world when they most desperately need our help.”
The refugees – more than 60 percent of them children – have been arriving since neighboring South Sudan’s civil war began in late 2013. More than 1.6 million have fled the country overall.