MY REFLECTION ON THE CONFLICT SITUATION IN THE EASTERN AFRICA REGION.

In the greater Eastern Africa region, a most complex phenomenon is the matter of conflict and its attendant displacement of people internally or across borders. Refugee-ship in Eastern Africa is a web. Save for Kenya and Tanzania, the rest of our neighbors grapple with various forms of conflict that invariably lead to people taking flight from their homes and ultimately countries.

The world's richest country, DRC, currently has 6m people internally displaced and another 1m as refugees all over Eastern Africa. Congolese refugees are found further in Southern Africa states. Paradoxically, DRC itself is home to half a million refugees, from Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, CAR and Uganda. Uganda on the other hand is host to Africa's largest refugee population at over 1.5m, more than half of whom are from South Sudan! The situation in South Sudan is both complex and dire. The world's newest country took off with hope and big expectations only to fall into new internal wrangles after decades of war with their northern neighbour from which they separated. Poverty has gotten worse, public services non existed and the political class not in a hurry to establish the very democratic process they waged war for.

The first ever election in South Sudan may hopefully happen in 2024.Yet South Sudan is not too bad after all, it would seem. More than 90% of refugees from Sudan are hosted in South Sudan. The recent conflict in Sudan has internally displaced 6m people and sent over a million others across borders to Chad, CAR, Libya, Egypt, South Sudan and Ethiopia. Sudan used to be host to the second largest refugee population on the continent after Uganda, so some of those newly leaving are refugees escaping back to the very countries they ran away from! The majority of these returnees are going back to South Sudan and Ethiopia.

Some are double unlucky; having escaped from Eritrea to Sudan and now to Ethiopia where an ongoing conflict has internally displaced 3m people. Despite her own internal displacements, Ethiopia hosts the third largest refugee population; mostly from South Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia. Eritrea and Somalia are a hot pair. One is considered a worse dictatorship than N. Korea - where the government has a chokehold on individual freedoms - while the other is considered a failed state - where the government has no hold on anything over much of its territory. It would be safe to imagine no one seeks refuge in these two. In fact, over 10% of either nation's nationals live abroad as refugees, majorly in Ethiopia for the former and Kenya for the latter. Yet there are refugees in Eritrea! Most fled from Ethiopia. Somalia too hosts refugees; mostly from Yemen - another failed state Somalians themselves flee to as refugees. This style of refugee exchange is all too common between Eastern Africa nations. Between us, we host one tenth of the world's refugees; that's over 6m people. Twice as many more are internally displaced. Were refugees and IDPs a country, it would be as populous as Rwanda and Burundi combined.

Taking care of Eastern Africa refugees and IDPs is thus a large enterprise that involves hundreds of NGOs - led by the UN - and private enterprises. This network spends an estimated over US$ 1B annually providing security, health, education, food, housing, transportation and any imaginable human need. The other side of this equation is a lot more sinister but just as complex a web: the why's and how's of all the conflicts that churn out the refugee state.