Due to the growing number of COVID-19 infections, governments of various countries have issued lockdowns and advised people to maintain social distancing in order to curb the spread of the virus. Having so many people living in close proximity is one of the major risk factors for the spread of the virus as it is highly transmissible, and an infected person may not show signs and can still transmit the virus.

In light of this, the Ethiopian government is moving on with plans to evacuate thousands of Eritrean refugees from camps over fears of COVID-19, despite pleas from international organizations and members of the camp to halt relocation.

Hitsats is one of four camps in the northern Tigray region occupied by thousands of Eritrean refugees including minors, making it prone to the spread of the virus as maintaining social distancing is impossible.

In a letter dated April 9, the Ethiopia’s Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) announced the government’s plans to relocate residents of Hitsats camp to Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps, or offer them the possibility to live in towns.

ARRA communicated to all humanitarian partners that new arrivals from neighboring Eritrea would no longer be offered “prima facie” refugee status, revisiting a longstanding policy of automatically granting all Eritrean asylum seekers the right to stay.

However, the relocation has yet to be executed amid the coronavirus pandemic, but officials say preparations continue. “We are ready to start the relocation at any time,” Eyob Awoke, deputy director general of ARRA, told Al Jazeera, stating that the declaration of a state of emergency last week due to the pandemic had forced authorities “to timely adapt the initial plan”.

There is no definite time selected for the evacuation to take place, nevertheless there are concerns that Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps are almost full and lack the infrastructure needed to cope with new arrivals, including sub-standard access to water.

Currently, only critical humanitarian and life-saving activities are running at the camp, as well as awareness-raising activities to prevent the spread of COVID-19. At the beginning of the month, the UNHCR and the World Food Programme reported that residents in Hitsats received a food ration for April.

With the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Africa, there are concerns of disastrous consequences in refugee camps, where healthcare systems are already strained and not easily accessible to large segments of the population.

Africa hosts over 25.2 million refugees and internally displaced people and is home to four of the world’s six largest refugee camps (in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia).

These camps are chronically underfunded, overcrowded, lack adequate water; sanitation and hygiene facilities, as well as poor health care facilities, making occupant vulnerable to COVID-19

Taking  South Sudan as an example, there are over 1.6 million internally displaced people in the country, and it often takes people hours, even days, to reach healthcare facilities, and the leading cause of death is “often preventable: treatable diseases like malaria and diarrhea

In the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), most of its population are displaced and rely on international aid for survival. The country is constantly at war and is currently battling Ebola, hunger and more recently COVID-19.

More so, Burkina Faso, an impoverished country of over 20 million people, has been gripped by an escalating and complex conflict that has caused “explosive displacement” over the past year and has so far  recorded the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 in West Africa.

Next in line is Kenya. The East African country is home to two major camps: Dadaab, near the country’s eastern border with Somalia, had a population of nearly 218,000 refugees and asylum seekers at the end of February, and Kakuma, in the northwest near the borders with South Sudan and Uganda, counts more than 190,000 refugees.

Also at high risk of getting infected are displaced people living outside formal refugee camps. Many of these refugees are in makeshift camps or urban slums which tend to be highly transient, poorly resourced and situated away from any source of official support. They rely on local charities for survival, many of which are now closed due to the pandemic and government-ordered lockdowns.

This however shows that the African government should prioritize refugee camps and detention centres, by providing access to adequate hygiene and health facilities to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Governments should also ensure that prevention, testing and treatment is made available as well as food and clean water.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterre, called for stronger coordination of international organizations and world leaders to ensure the more vulnerable countries get the support they need.