UN records 47 suicide cases among refugees in Uganda

By James Owich, KAMPALA Uganda, Israel

Up to 47 refugees living in Uganda died by suicide in 2024, a United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) report has detailed.

The suicide cases were recorded between January and December 2024, according to the UN refugee agency’s 2024 suicide dashboard published on January 10, 2025.

“Generally, 14 more deaths by suicide were recorded in 2024 compared to 2023 triggered by family disagreements, financial problems, and lack of basic needs, domestic violence, and previous mental illness as the leading causes.”

While 85 per cent of the suicide victims were males, 15 per cent were females, with the average age of the victims being 34. During the same period, 141 refugees attempted to take their own lives.

The same data states that in 2024, a total of 59 deaths by suicide were recorded, while 47 were refugees, and 12 are said to be Ugandan nationals.

Among the methods used in most of recorded suicide cases by refugees were hanging by rope, poisoning, ARV drug overdose, herbal concoctions, self-immolation, and drowning, it says.

The UN agency and its partners working to prevent suicide among refugees said the tragic incident was triggered by family disagreements, financial problems, and lack of basic needs, domestic violence and mental illness. Meanwhile, 14 refugees attempted suicide more than once.

The report further indicates that at least 12 Ugandan nationals living near the refugee settlement camps also killed themselves during the same period.

In total, 59 suicide cases and 190 attempted suicide cases were recorded within the refugee settlement camps in Uganda in 2024.

In total, 176 refugees, attempted suicide that year throughout the 11 refugee settlements across the country.

As per the UNHCR 2023 Situation report, at the end of 2023, over 2.2 million refugees were spread across the neighbouring countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda while another 2.2 million South Sudanese were internally displaced.

By the end of 2024, Uganda hosted 41 percent of the South Sudanese refugees in the region, Sudan hosted 30 percent, Ethiopia hosted 18.5 percent, Kenya 8 percent, and the DRC 2.5 percent. 

Ms Victoria Duite, the refugee welfare council II for Palorinya refugee settlement in Obongi district says reduced food rations and the inability to access employment opportunities to raise money to support their children to access education, force women and men to escape back to South Sudan while others end up resorting to suicide.

“The lack of livelihood opportunities combined with reductions in aid increasingly made it impossible for parents to find money to feed their children and keep them in school is a very big driver to suicides,” Ms Duite said.