Emergency Response

Refugees cannot be left out of Ebola response: Civitas Africa's work in Yumbe and Moyo

Refugees move. They cross borders out of necessity, not recklessness — returning to tend land, reconnect with family, or retrieve what little they left behind. These movements are pragmatic. They are also unprotected. And in the context of an Ebola outbreak, that invisibility has consequences.

Civitas Africa is actively engaged in Ebola risk communication and community protection in the refugee-hosting districts of Yumbe and Moyo in northern Uganda. Our work centres on a reality that is often overlooked in outbreak response: refugees face multiple, intersecting vulnerabilities that place them at elevated risk — and yet they are frequently absent from the protective architecture of national health responses.

Why refugees are at heightened risk

Refugee communities in Yumbe and Moyo host significant numbers of South Sudanese refugees whose lives straddle borders. Cross-border movement — even when motivated by family obligation, livelihoods, or cultural necessity — creates real exposure risk in an active outbreak context. These movements are often informal, outside surveillance systems, and disconnected from official risk communication channels. Add to this the structural conditions of displacement — overcrowded settlements, limited access to healthcare, language barriers, and institutional mistrust — and the picture is one of compounded vulnerability.

Our response: what we are doing

• Risk communication
  Community-level Ebola risk communication in refugee settlements, delivered in partnership with District Health Offices in Yumbe and Moyo — in accessible formats and local languages.
• Psychosocial support
  Structured PSS for individuals and groups managing Ebola-related fear, grief, and stigma — drawing on community-based approaches rooted in local ways of coping.
• Mental health support
  MHPSS integration ensuring that outbreak response does not neglect the psychological toll on affected refugee communities and frontline community health workers.
• Referral pathways
  Active support for local referral systems — connecting individuals presenting with acute mental health or medical needs to appropriate health and protection services.

Working with district health systems

Civitas Africa's approach is deliberately embedded in district health actions. We work alongside District Health Offices in Yumbe and Moyo rather than parallel to them — building local capacity, supporting coordination, and ensuring that refugee communities are included in outbreak response planning and monitoring. This is both a technical and a political commitment: refugees must not be treated as footnotes to a national response designed primarily for host communities.