For refugees, hunger, reduced access to basic needs and income opportunities, insecurity, overcrowded settlements and precarious sanitary conditions are the realities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Unable to support themselves, people have become even more dependent on aid which has suffered significant cuts over the recent period. While the stalking virus has not extended widely across all the camps, refugees are suffering from the repercussions of containment measures.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), around 80 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide with 80% of these living in low- and middle-income countries where health facilities are less accessible. Particularly vulnerable to the virus and severely affected by its lamentable consequences, refugees face serious hardship in accessing food, basic necessities, humanitarian aid and income opportunities.
Millions of refugees on the verge of hunger
Millions of refugees across Africa are at risk of starvation due to increased food prices, disruptions to supply chains and loss of income. Acute malnutrition and anaemia are becoming real problems in refugee camps. In Ethiopia, 62% of children living in settlements are experiencing critical levels of anaemia and, being deprived of food at vital stages of their development, these children could face life-long difficulties in the future. Previously able to support themselves, many people are now relying on regular aid to meet their food needs. Despite this fact, as a result of severe underfunding, food assistance has been reduced in several African countries such as Uganda, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan result of severe underfunding. However, tens of organisations are being involved in providing food to the most affected people. The World Food Programme (WFP) alone is delivering food aid to more than 10 million refugees worldwide.
High levels of food insecurity could be experienced by poor urban households in Uganda where people rely on casual labour, petty trading, food vending, construction activities and domestic work states a report provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). About 1.4 million refugees live in Uganda, including roughly 880,000 people from South Sudan and around 415,000 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and requests for humanitarian aid have increased in recent months as a result of limited income-earning opportunities.
The restrictive measures in Colombia, which hosts 1.8 million Venezuelan migrants, have resulted in 48% of the displaced populations running out of any source of income, comparing to the 4% pre-pandemic figure. The WFP has forecast an 82% increase in the number of people experiencing hunger, accounting for 270 million by the end of the year.
Escalating violence increases the need for humanitarian aid
“We cannot afford to let refugees, and their hosts, slip deeper into poverty and despair, with consequences that will reverberate, that are reverberating already, across the region and beyond,” said UNHCR chief, Filippo Grandi, regarding the necessity to redouble the support offered to Syrians and neighboring countries who have hosted refugees during nearly a decade of conflict between the Syrian government and opposition rebel forces.
According to the estimations, around 400,000 people have been killed since the start of the war, nearly 5.6 million have fled Syria, while over 6 million have been internally displaced. The United Nations has called for solidarity to support humanitarian operations inside Syria with funds of US$3.8 billion and for countries in Syria’s neighborhood, a plan for a $6.04 billion package.
Displaced population subject to reprisal attacks
Struggling to meet their basic needs, refugees in DRC are experiencing an increasing number of violent attacks. Armed groups of rebels persecute the displaced population and the areas that host them, spreading fear, killings and mutilation, sexual violence and looting. The uprooted families have become subject to multiple reprisals due to their perceived support for the army. The current attacks have worsened an already complex displacement space in eastern DRC, placing more pressure on those who have left their homes and now cannot access basic needs such as food, water and healthcare services.
Women and girls are particularly vulnerable, becoming victims of sexual and gender-based assaults and abuse. Around 400 cases of sexual violence were recorded in the Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces during the last month, most of these being attributed to the members of the Congolese security services. Displaced people need appropriate medical care, shelter, relief items and cash. UNHCR is seeking to increase the financial support for the humanitarian operations in DRC, one of regions with the highest rates of internal displacement in the world. So far, only 21% of US$168 million required has been found.
Adequate health care and sanitary conditions are absent
Latin America, where the coronavirus infections are on the spike, is host to 8.3 million internally displaced people (IDPs), 300,000 refugees and over 4.2 million displaced Venezuelans. The overwhelmed health infrastructure which is at the point of collapse is raising concerns in several Latin countries.
Meanwhile, millions of IDPs in the Middle East live in overcrowded settlements with limited services and inadequate sanitation. The majority of refugees in informal camps such as those in Lebanon, home to more than 1.5 million people, are not connected to the public water network and use inadequate sanitation facilities.
Social distancing is a luxury for people in refugee camps such as Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, one of the world’s most populous grouping of refugee camps, where the high density of population makes it difficult to adopt the precautionary measures.
The international community is concerned about the negative impact of reduced assistance for refugees and is calling for the financial support necessary in order to ensure a complex Global Humanitarian Response Plan and to tackle the repercussions of the pandemic.
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