Uganda’s refugee health system is facing an unprecedented crisis as deep humanitarian funding cuts force the closure of essential services, leaving more than one million refugees without access to life-saving healthcare, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has warned.
Uganda hosts nearly two million refugees, making it Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country and one of the largest globally.
For years, the country’s progressive refugee policy—praised for granting refugees freedom of movement, access to services, and the right to work—has been held up as a global model. Today, that model is under severe strain.
Since 2022, humanitarian needs in refugee-hosting areas have continued to rise, driven by new arrivals, disease outbreaks, and worsening poverty. At the same time, international funding has declined sharply, with health services bearing the brunt of the cuts.
According to the IRC, budget reductions have already forced the organisation to shut down or scale back health services in 11 refugee settlements across the country.
Clinics have closed, outreach programmes have been suspended, and remaining health facilities are overwhelmed as refugees and host communities compete for increasingly limited care.
The situation is being compounded by multiple, overlapping crises. New refugees continue to arrive from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo—countries ranked third and seventh respectively on the IRC’s 2026 Emergency Watchlist.
Meanwhile, the slow transition of refugee health services into the national health system, rising malnutrition levels, and recurring outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and mpox are stretching already fragile services beyond capacity.
Elijah Okeyo, IRC Uganda Country Director, said the consequences of the funding shortfall are already severe and visible on the ground.
“It is still early in the year, but following last year’s cuts and with only six percent of the required funding secured for 2026, nearly two million refugees risk losing access to basic health and nutrition services,” Okeyo said. “This will lead to more clinic closures, suspended programmes, and preventable illness and deaths.”
He noted that the impact is already being felt in major refugee settlements including Bidibidi, Imvepi, Rhino Camp, Palabek and Kiryandongo, where more than 735,500 refugees have been affected.
“The remaining facilities are overwhelmed. Some clinicians are seeing more than 100 patients a day—nearly twice the accepted standard—compromising the quality of care and increasing burnout among health workers,” he added.
Women and children are among the most vulnerable. The termination of key nutrition, maternal, and child health programmes has removed a critical safety net, increasing the risk of maternal and newborn deaths as well as long-term developmental harm to children.
Okeyo further warned that reduced disease surveillance and immunisation services are heightening the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, even as health workers continue to respond to cholera and mpox.
“The scale of these cuts is devastating. They are reversing years of hard-won gains in refugee health, leaving families without care and putting lives at immediate risk. This is not a future threat—it is happening now,” he said.
Humanitarian actors warn that without urgent and sustained funding, Uganda’s refugee health system could collapse entirely, placing nearly two million lives at risk and undermining one of the world’s most significant refugee protection frameworks.
The IRC has operated in Uganda since 1998, initially responding to displacement caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency. Over the years, the organisation has expanded its presence nationwide, delivering life-saving assistance to refugees and vulnerable Ugandans alike.
The organisation began operations in Kampala in 2012, was among the first responders to the South Sudan refugee crisis in 2016, and later expanded to the Tooro region in 2019.
In addition to emergency health services, the IRC supports long-term recovery through immunisation, family planning, legal protection, women’s empowerment, education, livelihoods, and epidemic preparedness.
As funding gaps widen, humanitarian agencies are urging the international community to act urgently, warning that failure to respond now could cost countless lives and dismantle decades of progress in refugee protection and healthcare in Uganda.
