UNHCR welcomes first-ever Youth Refugee Olympic Team to compete at inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Africa

ELDORET - UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomes the first-ever youth refugee Olympic team at their pre-competition training camp on the journey to the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal next month. The team represents millions of forcibly displaced young Africans, highlighting the continent’s role in showcasing the power of sport to change lives of people forced to flee.

The inaugural team of six refugees, managed by the Olympic Refuge Foundation and supported by the National Olympic Committees of Kenya and Uganda, the International Olympic Committee, World Athletics and UNHCR, currently live in Uganda and Kenya, but hail from across the continent. They will compete in athletics, judo and taekwondo at the Youth Olympic Games.

“This is a historic moment for young refugees in this region, and across Africa, to demonstrate the immense potential people forced to flee have when given the opportunity," said Mamadou Dian Balde, UNHCR’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa. "UNHCR is immensely proud to support this team of talented young refugee athletes and of our long-standing partnership with the IOC and the Olympic Refuge Foundation in offering hope, belonging and opportunities for refugees, far beyond the playing field.”

The youth refugee team’s Chef De Mission is refugee Olympian and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Yiech Pur Biel, who competed in the first Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics in Brazil. After fleeing the war in South Sudan in 2005, Biel spent most of his life in Kenya’s Kakuma, where he also developed his athletics abilities. Since Rio, Biel has continued to represent refugees in various sporting competitions, in Kenya and around the world, most recently in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as part of the Refugee Olympic Team. Eliud Kipchoge is the team’s mentor.

“Having been part of the first ever refugee team at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and now journeying with a team of young refugee athletes in these global games being held in Africa for the first time, is a full circle moment for me,” said Biel, speaking from the Complete Sports Training Centre in western Kenya where the team is currently training ahead of the Dakar Games. “It is an extraordinary opportunity to change how the world sees us – not just as refugees but as active participants in our own futures who can thrive and succeed, and impact the lives of others,” he added.

The youth refugee Olympic team will join some 2700 athletes who will compete in various sporting events at the Youth Olympic Games, the first to be held in Africa, scheduled to run from 31 October to 13 November, hosted in Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly in Senegal.

“We are delighted to welcome the six youth refugee athletes to these historic Games here in Dakar, and we look forward to seeing them compete in their respective disciplines,” said Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde, UNHCR Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “These young athletes are role models and a source of inspiration for the more than 10 million forcibly displaced children under the age of 17 in West and Central Africa.”

Working with National Olympic Committees, refugee athletes around the world are supported through the Olympic Refuge Foundation’s Refugee Athlete Support Programme, which gives refugee athletes scholarships to train and compete with the hope of qualifying for the Olympic Games.

According to UNHCR’s latest statistics, more than 117 million people were forcibly displaced globally as of the end of 2025. Of these, 39 million were hosted across sub-Saharan Africa, nearly a third of whom are refugees and asylum-seekers. Half of them are children.

ENDS

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For more information, please contact:

• In Nairobi (regional) Faith Kasina, [email protected], +254 113 427 094
• In Dakar (regional), Fidelia Bohissou, [email protected], +221 77 569 91 60
• In Geneva, Eujin Byun, [email protected], +41 79 747 87 19