UNHCR has noted higher reports of gender-based violence and attempted and completed suicides in Ugandan settlements compared to this time last year.40 THREATS TO SECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN ACCESS With armed conflict set to continue, inter-related conflict-epidemic dynamics may further impede access for internally displaced people to reach care. Providing humanitarian assistance to populations is dependent on political will to maintain safe humanitarian corridors. Despite the UN Secretary General’s call for a global ceasefire to help control COVID-19, the UN Security Council has failed to agree on a resolution to implement it, nor a way to ensure cross-border access for humanitarian assistance to populations trapped in conflict settings. Security Council members have, for example, in January 2020, failed to extend the cross-border authorisation to move aid supplies from Iraq to North-East Syria through the Yaroubiya crossing point,41 a decision which increases the fragility of a health system decimated by nine years of conflict, at a point when local authorities need to prepare for a potential COVID-19 epidemic. During active conflicts, certain health facilities may also be attacked, or be off-limits to some men, especially soldiers, highlighting the risks to accessibility of limiting COVID-19 services (such as quarantine) to only some health facilities. STIGMATISATION OF OUTSIDERS AND THE INCREASED MARGINALISATION OF VULNERABLE GROUPS As has been the case around the world, COVID-19 has created acute fears of contagion and created stigma around human movement. Globally, migrant populations have been stigmatized, scapegoated and neglected in the emergency response to COVID-19.42 In Lebanon, there are some reports of Syrian refugees coming from border-spaces being refused secondary healthcare at hospitals, because they are believed to carry the virus. Hygiene-related arguments are also a common tactic used by warring parties to exacerbate existing tensions with enemy groups,43 which COVID-19 could contribute to. Myths about migrants as disease carriers are not supported by the available evidence and ignore the critical contributions that migration makes to global economies.23 Nevertheless, when forcibly displaced people are imagined as carriers of disease it creates short-term protection issues for their safety if host populations distrust them. Previous epidemics have shown that stigmatising disease transmission only further places stigmatised populations at risk and reduces their access to care.44 Inciting stigma aimed at foreigners or minority groups undermines trust in community engagement efforts which are needed for an effective, whole-of-society epidemic response.45 Such sentiments can also negatively impact the longer term goal of social inclusion as outlined in the Global Compact on Refugees. Stigma is hard to undo. 46 It is therefore important that all actors working on WASH and other interventions with displaced populations during COVID19 are aware of disease discourses being used to ‘other’ migrant or enemy groups to avoid unintentionally exaggerating these stereotypes. KEY CONSIDERATIONS: COVID-19 AND FORCED DISPLACEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND EAST AFRICA Contact: a.wilkinson@ids.ac.uk 9