Refugee camp in Uganda plagued with anti-LGBT violence
Homophobes target LGBTQI refugees in Nakivale settlement in Uganda
The Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), a Uganda-based LGBTQI+ rights organisation, has raised a red flag over the plight of LGBTQI+ refugees in Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Isingiro District in southwestern Uganda.
In January and February 2025, HRAPF documented growing cases of homophobic attacks ranging from actual violence to arrests and evictions in Africa’s oldest and the world’s ninth-largest refugee settlement.
In January 2025, HRAPF documented seven incidents of actual violence, including gang rape, on the basis of the presumed sexual orientation or gender identity of eight victims. Six of the cases were registered from Isingiro district and one case was registered from Kampala district.
“It should be noted that Isingiro hosts Nakivale Refugee Settlement where violence against suspected LGBTIQ persons is rising” HRAPF stated in the January report.
In one of the attacks, a transgender woman was raped by three men who were unknown to her. They reportedly forced themselves on her while hurling homophobic slurs at her and accusing her of promoting homosexuality in the area. They also told her they intended to hurt her so that she would stop wanting to have sex with “fellow men.” She reported the matter at Nakivale police station. Investigations were still ongoing, and no person had been arrested by the time the report was published.
In February, there were five incidents of actual violence on the basis of the presumed sexual orientation or gender identity of eight victims. All the incidents involved physical violence and the victims sustained serious injuries as a result of the attacks. Three of the cases were registered from Isingiro district, one case from Kampala district and one from Mbarara district.
“It should be noted that this is the second month in a row where there is a concentration of violence against suspected LGBTQ persons in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Isingiro district, with six out of the seven cases of violence on the basis of SOGIE reported in January 2025 having occurred in the same area,” HRAPF noted in the February report.
In one of the homophobic attacks in February, the victims sustained serious injuries when they were physically assaulted by a mob that accused them of being the cause of problems in the refugee camp. They reported an assault case to the police, but none of the suspects had been arrested by publishing time.
Nakivale Refugee Settlement hosts more than 170,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Somalia, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Although many of the refugees have been living there for years, the continuation of conflicts as well as the growing, sometimes state-sponsored, human rights violations in the region are increasing the number of arrivals daily.
Coming from countries with poor human rights especially in relation to LGBTQI+ rights and being hosted in a country whose leaders and communities are largely homophobic has made it difficult for LGBTQI+ refugees to live normal lives.
According to HRAPF, the authorities are doing very little to address the growing violence against suspected LGBTQI+ persons in the settlement.
