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A year ago it was Greece and Turkey that bore the brunt of the world's worst refugee crisis. Newspapers and television bulletins were full of stories about the influx of a million people in Europe, fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East or Africa.
Key points:
- Uganda took in 1.3 million people in past 12 months from neighbouring countries
- Most from South Sudan, which has suffered through famine
- Thousands of refugees return to Nigeria from Cameroon
Now, an even bigger refugee crisis is unfolding, not in Europe but in Africa. But it has had far less media coverage, and it is questionable whether Australians know much about it.
Uganda is now the centre of the world's fastest growing refugee crisis.
In the past 12 months the central African nation has taken in around 1.3 million people — more than Greece, Turkey or any other country in the world at the height of last year's crisis in Europe.
Every day around 2,000 people stream across Uganda's borders fleeing famine, drought and violence in neighbouring countries.
Most are from South Sudan, which was declared to be in a state of famine early this year. Although conditions have eased slightly, the reality for many on the ground in South Sudan has changed little.
The number of people struggling to find enough food each day has grown to 6 million, the highest level of food insecurity the country has ever seen.
The United Nations says almost 276,000 people are estimated to be severely malnourished and in need of immediate life-saving aid.
"Six million people don't know where their next meal is coming from, that's an extraordinary number," said James Elder, from the UN children's agency UNICEF.
"It's more than 50 per cent of the population. So really the crisis remains in full throttle. Their life is still hellish. They're suffering from a disastrous lack of access to food."
At the height of the famine at least 30 per cent of South Sudan's population faced severe malnutrition, and one in 5,000 people died every day.
The lack of clean water remains as much a threat as the lack of food.
"While food is a critical issue, it's dirty water that is going to kill most children. That's why we have so many people now fleeing South Sudan every single week," Mr Elder said.
The scale of malnutrition and hunger in South Sudan has had an extraordinary impact on Uganda. Refugee settlements have sprung up along Uganda's northern border with South Sudan.
Only a few months ago Palabek was little more than a dot on the map — dry, dusty and relatively uninhabited. Today it is home to 150,000 people, and counting.
Another settlement at Bidi Bidi currently houses more than 250,000 refugees, more than any other such place in the world. Bidi Bidi had to be closed to new arrivals last December, to prevent overcrowding. But since then new refugee settlements have opened roughly every two months.
Mr Elder says Uganda has shown an extraordinarily progressive and open-door policy to refugees. So much so, many South Sudanese are expected to stay in Uganda indefinitely.
"They offer them land, they offer them services, they offer them rights. So I think amid all these challenges and all the horrors people are enduring, this approach of the Ugandan Government that really offers better prospects to refugee kids is a really good lesson to other countries globally who are dealing with their own refugee crises," Mr Elder said.
"A lot of them have just endured so much hardship that right now they're just starting again. They've got tools, they've got land they will harvest.
"Most people I meet from any country tend to want to go back to that country if it's safe and if there is some chance of giving opportunities to their children. Right now that is not the case in South Sudan.
"It is very much a village life. They're not in camps. They have freedom of movement, a chance for their kids to go to school, a chance to grow and start an agricultural life."
But the influx of so many people is placing an enormous strain on Uganda and the aid agencies trying to assist them.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres — while praising Uganda for accepting so many refugees — says the country is now massively overstretched. UN agencies and NGOs are struggling to provide enough food, water, medicines and other services needed to sustain such a huge population.
The Ugandan Government is seeking around $8 billion in humanitarian assistance.
Refugees return to Nigeria from Cameroon
Uganda and South Sudan are not the only African nations struggling with an influx of refugees.
In Nigeria, efforts to end the threat of violence by the Islamist group Boko Haram has encouraged tens of thousands of refugees to return from neighbouring Cameroon.
As security in Nigeria improves, particularly in the country's north-east, more than 100,000 people have returned from Cameroon since the start of the year.
In recent months the number has jumped to several thousand a week. But there isn't the food or resources to support them.
"A lot of these places aren't fully equipped for these people to return to," UNICEF spokeswoman Harriet Dwyer said.
"There are not sufficient water supplies to meet the great needs of the very recent huge influx of people that are coming back to some of these newly accessible areas.
"And that will have an impact on rates of malnutrition … and access to clean water is becoming increasingly difficult."
The lack of services and continued violence by Boko Haram in some areas has contributed to a secondary population displacement for many Nigerians in their own country.
"What we're worried about is that these people are facing a secondary displacement where they can't return to their actual homes, and they've left the security of the camps in Cameroon," Ms Dywer said.
"They're coming to the security of towns, that have been secured by the military while the countryside remains insecure.
"So we're seeing huge movement of people. And it's very difficult to plan for their return."
She said the impending start to Nigeria's rainy season was likely to complicate the humanitarian response and rates of disease or malnutrition.
"We're now faced with this horrible irony that it's flooding here and there'll be rain everywhere, but there's still not enough clean water for children to drink and survive," Ms Dwyer said.
"As children and families can't access enough clean water there are huge increased risks of disease and also of malnutrition."
Topics: refugees, immigration, community-and-society, world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, uganda, cameroon, south-sudan, sudan
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