Dakar 2026: Six young refugees aged 15 to 17 in the very first YOG Olympic team

Six young refugees aged 15 to 17 will compete under the colors of the Refugee Olympic Team at the Dakar Youth Olympic Games, which opened on October 31, 2026, in Senegal and are scheduled to run until November 13. This is the first time the YOG have included such a team, and the first time the African continent has hosted them, reports the pan-African agency Bird Story Agency on October 30, 2026.

Dakar is bringing together approximately 2,700 young athletes. These six, three girls and three boys, who usually reside in Kenya and Uganda, are competing in athletics, judo, and taekwondo.

From Kakuma to the Kaptagat high-altitude camp

They prepared in Kaptagat, near Eldoret, in the Kenyan highlands where the world's best long-distance runners train. Clement Niyomuhoza, 16, will run the 800m: he grew up in the Kakuma refugee camp after his family fled Burundi. He says he is aiming for "gold" and wants to "build a home for orphans."

Alongside him are: Lourance Namukiza, 16, in taekwondo; Rachid Rochene and Florence Masumbe, 16, in the 200m, based in Uganda; Arno, 15, in judo; and Nyataba, 17, in the 800m. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Kenyan Olympic committee is hosting four of them, and the Ugandan committee the other two. Two were identified through Game Connect, a community sports program led in Uganda with the Olympic Refuge Foundation.

What these six names say about the continent

The figures cited by the IOC provide perspective: East and Southern Africa have 6.4 million refugees and asylum seekers, about 48% of whom are under 18. West and Central Africa total 20.1 million forcibly displaced or stateless people. Six selected, then, for millions of young people. Lourance Namukiza puts it bluntly: "Millions of refugees will not be at the Olympic Games."

A path already traveled by their chef de mission

The Refugee Olympic Team was born in Rio in 2016 with ten athletes, before Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. The person leading the Dakar delegation is a product of that program: Yiech Pur Biel, originally from South Sudan and a former resident of Kakuma, ran the 800m in Rio; he is now an IOC member and a UNHCR ambassador. "I truly believe that Dakar will be a life-changing moment for them," he says.

In Kaptagat, the six met Eliud Kipchoge, who came to talk to them about discipline, and refugee athletes who are already preparing for Los Angeles 2028. For Beatrice Ayikoru, Secretary General of the Ugandan Olympic Committee, the starting line erases labels: "You are an athlete."