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Families Headed by Refugee Children Too Common in Uganda Camps

Halima Athumani

   ADJUMANI, UGANDA - Uganda hosts Africa's largest refugee population --
   one-and-a-quarter million -- and 36,000 of them are unaccompanied and
   separated children.

   In 2013, sixteen-year-old Salila Miyala's family fled fighting in South
   Sudan to a refugee camp in Uganda.

   But three years later, her parents returned home, leaving the children
   in Uganda, with Miyala as head of the household.

   "I came with my parents, but my father beat my mother, so she left,"
   Miyala said.

   While most broken families were torn apart by years of conflict in
   South Sudan, domestic violence and poverty also play a role.

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