Fred Buyi’s few belongings hang from the ceiling of a tarpaulin tent in Bunambutye resettlement camp, pitched on the hot, scrubby plains outside Mbale in eastern Uganda. Space is tight and privacy is scarce.
Sanitation facilities are shared by dozens. Each morning, long queues stretch towards the distribution point where displaced families line up for plates of maize and beans. Here, Buyi, 32, is separated from his wife and children, who stay on the other side of the camp in a section reserved for women.
“The life we are living here is not a good life,” he said. “The water is dirty. We are not having a good diet.”
It’s a stark contrast to the life Buyi and his family have left behind.
Just eight months ago, Buyi was growing bananas, avocado, and jackfruit on the lush, green slopes of Mount Elgon, a massive, extinct volcano that straddles the border between Uganda and Kenya. Its fertile lower slopes – nourished by rich volcanic soil, cool mountain air, and dependable rains – sustain over half a million people.
But weeks of heavy rainfall in November 2024 triggered landslides that thundered through communities in Bulambuli District. Villages were swept away. Roads vanished. Homes were buried beneath torrents of earth and stone. At least 28 people died.
Fred was left homeless as thousands were evacuated off the mountain, 1,800 to Bunambutye camp. But conditions in the camp mean many have decided the risks of returning to the mountain outweigh the hardships of staying.
“We are going to go because there’s no one who is helping us now,” he said, standing among a crowd of his friends who loudly voiced their agreement. “We want to go back to our place.”
Buyi’s decision reflects a growing dilemma in one of Uganda’s most climate-vulnerable regions. Around Mount Elgon, many displaced by landslides and floods are returning home when state-led responses stall. Grassroots efforts on the mountainside have stepped in to help, aiming to reduce the risk and help communities rebuild.
In 2024, floods, landslides, and other climate-related disasters displaced more than 78,000 people and affected over 413,000 across Uganda – 35% of them children – making it the worst year since UNICEF began tracking such data in 2018.
Landslides in Mount Elgon have intensified since the early 2000s, driven by environmental degradation and climate change.
Hillsides that were once stabilised by dense forest have been cleared for timber, housing, and fast-growing crops such as maize, resulting in degraded and unstable soil. Since 1973, approximately 76% of the forest cover in the national park’s buffer zone has vanished, removing the mountain’s natural defenses.
At the same time, heavy rains, which saturate soil and loosen rock, have become more intense – and are set to worsen. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that extreme precipitation will become more frequent across East Africa as global warming continues. Uganda’s average temperature has risen by 1.3°C since the 1960s, with projections suggesting an increase of 1.5 to 5.4°C by the end of the century.
This trend is dangerous not only in Mount Elgon but also in western Uganda, where floods have displaced thousands – including over 7,000 people in Kasese District still living in temporary shelters after their homes were destroyed in 2020, according to local media.
As Uganda’s climate-displaced population grows, the government has struggled to provide safe, livable, or attractive alternatives.
The government promised 10 million shillings each ($2,787) in compensation to those who evacuated Mount Elgon after November’s slides. But nearly nine months later, Buyi and hundreds more are still waiting for any money to arrive.
Apollo Wamumbi, a parish chief assigned to the Bunambutye camp by the prime minister’s office, admitted people were distressed while waiting for compensation. Asked when it might arrive, he said it could be another year – an “approximate” timeline.
For many, including Buyi, the wait has been long enough. And some have already gone back.
Two of Francis Gidegi’s brothers were killed in the landslide. He, too, was taken to Bunambutye, but returned to the mountain in April after struggling to make a living. “In the camps, you are just eating, sleeping,” the 46-year-old said. “I came back to plant trees, maintain our gardens, and renovate and rebuild.”
His neighbour, Simon Nabwita, lost his father during the landslide but refused to evacuate altogether after hearing about camp life.
Experts say returning to hazardous areas reflects shortcomings in Uganda’s resettlement system, and underscores the need for solutions that respect people’s social, cultural, and economic realities.
“You cannot take someone who lives in highlands to flat land, from a rain-sufficient area that promotes agriculture to one that suffers flooding and drought.”
Yeeko Kisira, a geography lecturer at Gulu University, co-authored a study urging a more holistic approach to climate-related resettlement in Uganda. While displacement can bring improved housing and services, he argues, it often leads to land disputes, poor infrastructure, and lost livelihoods, prompting many to return and rebuild on their own terms.
“You cannot take someone who lives in highlands to flat land, from a rain-sufficient area that promotes agriculture to one that suffers flooding and drought,” he said. “It’s a totally different environment, and that makes people uncomfortable.”
In Bunambutye, residents said some of those who had received compensation eventually returned to Mount Elgon anyway. The land is familiar, the soil fertile, and the life – however precarious – is one they know.
But the government’s failure to deliver viable, dignified alternatives has opened space for local, community-driven solutions.
New farming methods as partial solution
Gidegi and Nabwita are among a growing number of farmers on the mountain practising agroforestry – a globally recognised approach that integrates trees with crops to boost yields, reduce erosion, and build climate resilience.
They work with MEACCE, a local cooperative that has trained thousands of farmers across Mount Elgon. According to Rogers Fungo, a project officer at MEACCE, roughly 60% of people have returned from the camps, and the group engages them upon their return.
This is not an isolated effort. Across the region, a widening network of initiatives – backed by cultural institutions, NGOs, and the UN – is working to make life safer on the slopes.
In Bududa District, where a 2010 landslide killed more than 350 people, the Common Ground project – led by Wageningen University in the Netherlands and implemented by Uganda’s Integrated Seed and Sector Development initiative – takes a bottom-up approach.
Using a method called Participatory Integrated Planning (PIP), communities identify their own challenges and develop long-term solutions, followed by peer-to-peer training in practices like mulching, intercropping, and building “trash lines” to slow runoff on steep hillsides.
Francis Mukuwa, 52, who has survived landslides in Budada’s Naposhi Parish in 1997 and 2019, said he has seen “a very big difference” since the project began in 2022.
“They started training us how to establish trenches to control runoffs, and supported us to plant trees which have started growing,” he said, standing in the middle of a landslide scar that is now used for agroforestry. “In the near future, this place is going to be restored.”
Common Ground aims to build 150,000 resilient smallholder farmer households in communities in highlands across Uganda by 2026. Aad Kessler, a Wageningen researcher and PIP expert, said the goal is to build enough community ownership that the work continues beyond the life of the project.
“The people are willing to adopt anything that may help them stay in their place,” said Steven Masiga, a spokesperson for Inzu Ya Masaba, a cultural institution that represents the Bamasaaba people living around Mount Elgon and has itself led large-scale reforestation campaigns using native tree species. “Any strategies to help them live better after the disaster [are welcome].”
Yet while community-based efforts may reduce the frequency and severity of smaller landslides, they are mitigatory, not preventative. The risk of large-scale disasters, especially those driven by extreme rainfall, still looms. Officials remain adamant that evacuation and resettlement remain the safest long-term option.
“We have areas too steep, from where people must be evacuated,” said Annet Nandudu, Bulambuli District chairperson. “Government came up with the best option, although it has faced delays.”
This leaves many displaced Ugandans facing a painful choice: remain in under-resourced camps where life is hard, or return to high-risk areas and try to make them safer.
For some, the risk is still too high.
Irene Wanyenze, 52, lives in a crowded tent with women and children, across from Buyi in Bunambutye camp.
“My tent has 92 people; we are too congested, and the tents are small,” she said. “But if we go back, the landslides come when it rains. You risk it if you go back, that’s why we are afraid.”
*Adopted from The New Humanitarian
