Nakivale (Uganda) : Red Cross volunteers on strike

These volunteers grumble that they have just gone more than six months without receiving their incentive bonus. Refugees, beneficiaries of Red Cross services, suffer greatly. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Red Cross volunteers intervene more in the social and medical fields or as first aid workers. They are also participating in a major project to reunify families broken up following conflicts or natural disasters.

In Nakivale camp, they were more visible in the communities, which meant that the beneficiaries of their services suffered greatly.

The victims or even these beneficiaries are estimated at more than 80% of destitute refugees.

“For us, we are unable to distinguish these volunteers because when you need help, you approach the one who is close to you and the latter assists you or calls on the one who is best placed. It’s a team that works as one. So, it’s as if life is paralyzed here because they are there but not operating. We fear for our lives, in any case,” say the refugees.

Obviously, as one of the Red Cross volunteers points out, when they are on duty, they do almost everything because, he says, “we are proud to be at the service of our own community”.

“But in fact the project in which we are most involved is that of family reunification. So, at the moment, there is nothing we can do. We are sorry even if we have to help our compatriots and/or neighbors, now there is nothing we can do,” laments a Red Cross volunteer who says he no longer even wears his duty vest.

The main cause of this strike movement is the claim for six months of unpaid bonuses.

“We know that this is due to a leadership crisis or a plan to divert the project, and therefore an overlap at the level of the Red Cross and the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) on a national scale in Uganda. We can no longer sacrifice our lives because there is a budget reserved for us,” explain the strikers.

The organization reassures the refugees that the situation will “soon be resolved”. The latter are saddened and demand that “our situation be taken into consideration”.

Nakivale has more than 140,000 refugees, including more than 33,000
Burundians.