KAMPALA, June 19 (Xinhua) -- As the world is set to commemorate World Refugee Day on June 20, new figures by the UN refugee agency show that the refugee population in Uganda increased by 44 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Global Trends Report 2017 released on Tuesday, attributes the increase to new arrivals of refugees from neighboring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) pushing the number to 1.4 million refugees.
The report showed that in addition to 1,037,400 refugees from South Sudan, Uganda also hosted sizable refugee populations from the DRC (226,200), Burundi (38,200), Somalia (25,000), and Rwanda (14,300).
In sub-Saharan Africa, the report showed that the number of refugees increased by 22 percent (1.1 million people) during 2017, mainly due to the crisis in South Sudan, from where more than 1 million people fled to Sudan and Uganda.
The report said with 6.3 million refugees, the sub-Saharan region hosted almost one-third of the world's refugee population.
According to UNHCR most of the displacement is due to conflict, persecution, human rights abuses and food insecurity.