A week after violent clashes left four refugees dead in Arua district, the UNHCR Representative in Uganda, Joel Boutroue is now calling on partners to prioritize labour-intensive initiatives to create employment for youth in refugee settlements and adjacent host communities.
Boutroue characterized failure to attend to the needs of refugee youth as “a time bomb”, noting that recourse to anti-social behaviour is in large measure the product of lack of opportunities to engage in productive activity.
His comments come a week after violence between rival ethnic groups (the Dinka and Nuer) among the South Sudanese refugees in Rhino Camp in Arua district left 4 people dead.
He condemned the criminal acts by refugees that led to loss of life among fellow refugees, and cautioned against oversimplifying what in essence are complex causes of violence.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Boutroue was however quick to add that “we must disabuse ourselves of simplistic generalizations that attribute such tensions solely to ethnic strife”.
“It is important to recognize that contributing factors also include the trauma that prompted refugees to seek safety in Uganda, the uncertainty of life in exile, and the resulting sense of hopelessness for a generation whose future has been squandered by conflict,” he added.
This week, local authorities and humanitarian partners cooperated to relocate 899 refugee households (4,971 individuals) of Nuer ethnicity voluntarily from Tika Zone to Omugo Zone in Rhino Camp.
Meanwhile, refugees of Dinka ethnicity returned to their homes in Tika Zone. Many had taken refuge in Olujubo Primary School, in churches and among local communities in nearby areas.
Over three days, local authorities and humanitarian partners coordinated efforts to ensure safe passage of the refugees, demarcate plots, provide hot meals and water, and construct communal latrines.
During the first two days, those relocated were mostly women and children. On the third day close to half were youth and men who came out of hiding.
The relocation followed a decision by the Office of the Prime Minister and UNHCR to separate Dinka and Nuer communities as a pre-emptive measure, based on the assessment that tensions between youth on both sides could spiral out of control if left unattended.
Adding to the appeal of the UNHCR Country Representative regarding income generating initiatives, the Senior Protection Officer in Arua for UNHCR, Peter Muriuki said that some of the underlying causes of tensions among youth include their economic needs.
“The youth segment of the refuge population has critical protection needs,” he said.
“The future holds little for them at a stage in their lives when they should be branching out in readiness for manhood. Despair and idleness encourage deviance and anti-social behaviour including alcohol and substance abuse.”
Muriuki highlighted positive engagement through vocational training as well as integration in employment and income earning activities as factors which could provide a counterbalance for the enduring psychological effects of violence experienced before and during flight.
He added that for people who have been socialized in a military context, emptiness or despondency literally become triggers for the kind of explosive tensions witnessed in Rhino Camp last week.
He called for investment in education, transferable skills and employment opportunities as a means to nurturing youth to aspire to greatness, and become responsible productive upright members of society both in asylum and in due course when they are able to return home.
“Refugee youth need livelihood opportunities that go beyond the traditional agro-based initiatives, such as mobile money transfer, tech platforms and e-learning skills,” Muriuki said.
“It is the way to ensure dignified asylum, promote social cohesion, and improve protection for both refugees and the communities that host them.”
In refugee settlements such as Nakivale and Kyangwali which are located in areas where agriculture and livestock farming are predominant economic activities, majority of refugees have improved their livelihoods by engaging in cultivation and rearing livestock
In addition to education opportunities, youth are also involved in skills training and enterprise development programs in languages, tailoring, music, dance and drama, mechanical works and repairs and teaching.
Organizations and charities like Caritas Uganda have been making efforts to empower the refugees by equipping them with requisite skills in food production and non-agricultural income generating. Caritas has trained about 124 young persons from the refugee and host communities living in Bidi Bidi Refugee settlement in Yumbe district.
South Sudanese nationals constitute about three-quarters of the refugee population in Uganda. The majority arrived during the past two years. Aged, between 15 and 25 years, youth are disproportionately disadvantaged in the absence of meaningful education and life skills development opportunities.