Brian Dinga, his sister-in-law and her six children fled their South Sudanese home in September 2016 after his brother was shot dead in fighting.

They trekked across the border into Uganda and were accommodated in the world’s largest refugee settlement, Bidibidi, where they struggled to make ends meet. Brian, 62, had no job and no money, and prospects for the family were not good.

From UNHCR. Story by Catherine Robinson.

A donated mobile phone has given them a lifeline. Brian was identified by the non-governmental organization DanChurchAid as a vulnerable case and he now receives an electronic cash transfer via the donated phone to buy food for his family.

“I get 10 dollars every month, which is sent to me on my phone, and we can buy whatever we want,” he says. “We spend it on food, buying fish, rice and vegetables. We even bought a hen so we could eat the eggs.”

More than one million people from South Sudan have fled to northern Uganda in the past year and the country is hosting a further 355,000 refugees in the south, from other countries.

Read more at UNHCR.