The Hungary Helps aid scheme is launching a 16 million euro developmental aid programme to improve the living conditions of several thousand people in Uganda, a state secretary of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office said.
Speaking to MTI by phone, Balázs Orbán said he had completed a three-day official visit to the eastern African country on Wednesday. The aid provided by the government-sponsored scheme will be used to improve drinking water supplies in Uganda’s extensive refugee camps, home to nearly 1.4 million people fleeing conflict, epidemics, political instability and economic despair in their home countries, Orbán said. The Hungarian aid will also fund development to Uganda’s asylum system, including developing cyber defence capabilities, he added.
Orbán said Uganda, which he said was the most stable country in the region, was doing its best to treat refugees humanely and to encourage them to return to their homelands when the crisis has passed. The ministry noted that Orbán met Musa Francis Ecweru, Uganda’s state minister for relief and disaster preparedness, and Henry Oryem Okello, the state minister for foreign affairs, among others.
The statement cited Ecweru as saying that Uganda supported Hungary’s refugee policy. “African issues related to refugees should be solved within the continent to avoid conflicts arising from cultural differences,” he was cited as saying.
MTI
