From The Guardian

When they fled to Kampala from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in February 2008, Robert Hakiza’s family had food for two months. “The third month was a disaster,” he says. By May, though, his mother and two sisters were out making money. “My sister started selling necklaces,” he says. “At one point, she was keeping the entire family of eight.”

Eight years on, the organisation Hakiza founded, Young African Refugees for Integral Development, employs 16 staff, comprising both refugees and Ugandans. Though his sisters dream of resettlement elsewhere, he is content. “Uganda is one of the best places to stay for refugees,” he says.

By 2015, Uganda had become the third largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, after Ethiopia and Kenya, with more than half a million refugees. That number is rising rapidly. Alongside ongoing crises in Burundi and DRC, violence in South Sudan has driven more refugees to Uganda during three weeks in July than in the first six months of 2016. The Danish Refugee Council warned last month the situation in northern Uganda could become “catastrophic” if they don’t receive more support for assisting the influx of refugees from South Sudan.

But these recent arrivals are among the lucky ones: Uganda is one of the most favourable environments in the world for refugees, according to the UNHCR. While many countries keep refugees in camps away from citizens, Uganda allows them to set up businesses, work for others, and move freely around the country.

Two tailors from Rwanda and Burundi work at Kityaza market in Nakivale refugee camp, where refugees have lived since 1958, Photograph: Anna Patton

The majority of refugees live in Uganda’s rural settlements, where they are allocated plots of land and given materials to build a basic home, as well as food aid and access to basic health and education services. But they are also free to build a life in Kampala – where 74,896 refugees and asylum seekers were registered as of May 2016 – as Patrick,* who arrived from Rwanda in 2009 did. Today, he owns a shop and three motorcycle taxis, and employs workers on his land.

Read more at The Guardian