A sudden administrative embargo in the capital
According to intelligence briefings published on 10 June 2025, the Office of the Prime Minister’s Refugee Desk in Kampala received internal instructions at the start of the year to stop issuing appointment slips to Eritrean applicants and to turn away new arrivals at reception centres. While the directive has not been made public, its effects are already felt: community leaders report that at least 1 200 Eritreans are stranded in the city’s Kisenyi quarter without papers, exposing them to arrest or extortion.
Independent verification came from Norway’s Landinfo, whose February field report notes that “registration of Eritrean asylum seekers was halted in January 2025” and remains frozen “until further notice”, despite earlier assurances that the measure was merely procedural. Civil-society lawyers interviewed for that study attest that case files submitted in late 2024 have “not advanced one inch” since the clamp-down, underscoring the depth of the backlog.
Security, compliance and the FATF shadow
Ugandan officials offer two intertwined explanations. First, senior police officers link the embargo to an ongoing anti-trafficking drive after Interpol alerts tied Eritrean networks in Kampala to regional people-smuggling rings. Second, the Ministry of Finance, still intent on escaping the Financial Action Task Force grey list, argues that an unmonitored inflow of cash-dependent newcomers could undermine recent money-laundering reforms. Though no minister has spoken on record, an adviser to the Internal Affairs docket said the country “cannot be seen as a soft spot while we clean our books”, hinting at a reputational calculus that reaches far beyond asylum administration.
Europe’s externalisation agenda meets African realpolitik
The timing is politically charged. On 15 May 2025 UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced talks with “a number of third countries” to host migrants who have exhausted appeals in Britain. Brussels, meanwhile, is debating a similar proposal for “return hubs”, and Kampala has featured in preliminary feasibility papers circulated by EU officials.
For Ugandan strategists, the Eritrean freeze serves two functions: it projects a tough stance against transnational crime and simultaneously increases Kampala’s leverage in any future negotiations over hosting European-funded reception centres. A State House source confided that “nothing will be decided before we see the colour of the money”, suggesting that refugee policy is becoming a bargaining chip in wider budgetary talks with Brussels and London.
Human cost for Eritrean displaced persons
While the bureaucracy tightens, Eritrean refugees face an acute protection vacuum. Research by the Mixed Migration Centre shows that Kampala had become a preferred waypoint for secondary movers fleeing insecurity in Tigray and eastern Sudan, largely because Uganda traditionally offered prima facie recognition to asylum seekers. The new freeze therefore disrupts established coping strategies and may push displaced Eritreans towards riskier routes through South Sudan or Libya.
UNHCR officials, caught off guard by Kampala’s unilateral step, warn that denying access to procedure contravenes the 1969 OAU refugee convention, to which Uganda remains a signatory. One senior protection officer lamented that “the suspension erodes Uganda’s reputation as a generous host and leaves people with no lawful path to safety”.
Diplomatic outlook: standoff or bargaining chip?
For European governments eager to resurrect offshore processing after the collapse of the UK-Rwanda model, Uganda’s posture is both an invitation and a warning. By halting Eritrean registrations, Kampala signals its capacity to modulate refugee inflows at will, thereby making itself indispensable in any external partnership. Yet the same move risks undermining the legal bedrock on which such partnerships must rest. Diplomats in Brussels caution that funding a state that suspends core asylum guarantees could trigger litigation under EU human-rights law.
In the coming weeks, donor missions will watch closely whether Kampala quietly reinstates the registration window or doubles down on the embargo to extract concessions. Either way, Eritrean refugees remain the collateral protagonists of a negotiation in which security optics, fiscal compliance and geopolitical horse-trading eclipse humanitarian imperatives.
Uganda’s silent gate has turned a technocratic registration freeze into a strategic lever in the contested politics of migration control. As Europe looks southwards for solutions and Kampala seeks financial and reputational gains, the fate of Eritrean asylum seekers hangs in the balance—an emblematic reminder that externalisation schemes are only as lawful and humane as the frontline states entrusted to implement them.
