Uganda is subject to armed fighting among hostile ethnic groups, rebels, armed gangs, militias, and various government forces that extend across its borders; Ugandan refugees as well as members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) seek shelter in southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Garamba National Park; LRA forces have also attacked Kenyan villages across the border
Kenya served as an important mediator in brokering Sudan's north-south separation in February 2005; as of March 2019, Kenya provides shelter to nearly 475,000 refugees and asylum seekers, including Ugandans who flee across the border periodically to seek protection from Lord's Resistance Army rebels; Kenya works hard to prevent the clan and militia fighting in Somalia from spreading across the border, which has long been open to nomadic pastoralists; the boundary that separates Kenya's and Sudan's sovereignty is unclear in the "Ilemi Triangle," which Kenya has administered since colonial times; in 2018, Kenya signed an MoU with Uganda and South Sudan to help demarcate their borders
Refugees and internally displaced persons
refugees (country of origin): 924,835 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 432,390 (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 51,039 (Burundi), 47,581 (Somalia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 17,750 (Rwanda), 17,658 (Eritrea) (2021)
refugees (country of origin): 269,870 (Somalia), 133,320 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 30,081 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 20,560 (Ethiopia), 7,081 (Burundi) (2021)
IDPs: 190,000 (election-related violence, intercommunal violence, resource conflicts, al-Shabaab attacks in 2017 and 2018) (2020)
stateless persons: 16,820 (2020); note - the stateless population consists of Nubians, Kenyan Somalis, and coastal Arabs; the Nubians are descendants of Sudanese soldiers recruited by the British to fight for them in East Africa more than a century ago; Nubians did not receive Kenyan citizenship when the country became independent in 1963; only recently have Nubians become a formally recognized tribe and had less trouble obtaining national IDs; Galjeel and other Somalis who have lived in Kenya for decades are included with more recent Somali refugees and denied ID cards
