Uganda: Humanitarian Situation Worse in the North - Donors
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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
June 18, 2004
Posted to the web June 18, 2004
Gulu
The humanitarian situation in the northern districts of Kitgum and Gulu has worsened
with increasingly terrifying rebel attacks on civilian targets, more congestion in
camps which already lack adequate sanitation facilities, and a world whose attention
has been distracted by emergencies elsewhere, donors say.
Pierre Combernous, the Swiss ambassador to Kenya and Uganda, who led a group of
representatives of donor countries on a fact-finding tour of northern Uganda lasting
from Tuesday until Thursday, described the situation in the area as a "humanitarian
crisis of tragic magnitude". It was such, he said, that it demanded all the attention
possible towards helping the over 1.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) who
had been forced out of their homes by the war between the Ugandan army and the rebel
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
The team, comprising representatives of Finland, the EU, Canada, Sweden and Spain, and
of UN, toured camps for IDPs, who told them they were in desperate need of
international intervention to solve the crisis in the region, and for more food and
health-care supplies.
Timo Olkkonen, of the Finnish embassy told IRIN that the situation in the region had
become "a human tragedy of vast proportion", adding that "attention should be given to
what is taking place in northern Uganda and assistance given accordingly".
As the members of the team walked between the rows of huts in the sprawling Pabbo
camp, 42 km northwest of Gulu town, they were followed by hordes of barefoot children
dressed in dirty rags.
The camp, one of the biggest with over 60,000 people, is located at the spot where the
18-year-old LRA rebellion started on 8 June 1986, according to the local county
council chairman, Christopher Ojera.
DEVASTATING EFFECTS OF CAMP LIFE
"Our culture is all shattered, and the education of our children in an illusion. In
the camp, sanitation is one of our main nightmares. Food supplies are also inadequate,
yet it is risky for people to access their gardens. Some of those who tried have been
killed," Ojera told IRIN at Pabbo.
According to NGOs, living in the camps has resulted in social disintegration, economic
disempowerment of families, and drug abuse coupled with high levels of promiscuity and
unprotected sex, resulting in greater risk of HIV/AIDS infection and increasing
numbers of child mothers.
Many IDPs, Ojera added, were also suffering from diseases like malaria, dysentery and
various types of skin infections.
KITGUM RESIDENTS TRAUMATISED
Before flying to Gulu, 360 km north of the capital, Kampala, the team visited Kitgum
town, another 100 km to the north. They found its inhabitants enveloped by a sense of
fear, with 90 percent of the population living in camps which have been increasingly
targeted by the LRA. IDPs there told the team that the rebels frequently attacked the
camps to steal food and medicine, and to abduct young men and girls to replenish their
fighting ranks.
Just hours after the team left after visiting the nearby Labuje IDP camp near the town
centre, the army repulsed an evening attack on it by the rebels. Another attempted
attack had been foiled two days earlier, security sources told IRIN.
At least 120 IDPs had been killed in attacks on their camps in the past three weeks,
local leaders, who pleaded for enhanced security from government forces, said.
The attacks included one on 8 June in Abok, Ngai sub-county, in Lira District, in
which 25 died; in another, on 3 June, the LRA killed 23 people at Kalabong, in
Namokora sub-county, Kitgum District; a 20 May attack, in which 41 people were killed,
on the Lukodi camp in Gulu District; and an earlier attack on Pagak camp, also in Gulu
District, in which 39 people died.
INADEQUATE EDUCATION AND HEALTH CARE
Labuje houses some 14,000 IDPs. The team was told at least 200 children in the camp
receive primary education in crowded classrooms, many sitting on bare floors. The
parents said they could not afford to pay for secondary education since life in camps
offered them no opportunity to generate income.
According to district authorities in Kitgum, the educational situation in Kitgum had
been so badly affected that 80 percent of the schools in the district had found
themselves displaced.
Health facilities had also been affected. At St Joseph Hospital, a missionary medical
facility, a children's ward built for 67 beds, had 700 admissions. Some mothers,
unable to find space in the main building for their children, had set up makeshift
beds on the verandahs as they waited to be attended to.
Medical personnel said between 50 and 60 children were admitted at the hospital every
day, suffering mainly from malaria or acute malnutrition. The hospital, however, had
only one doctor and two clinical officers available to attend to them.
"The workload is too much, the situation alarming. They come with malaria slides
reading three to four plus, and you have nothing to do but to admit them. Two kids die
here every day here," Dr Lillian Akello, the sole medical officer, told IRIN.
Records at the hospital showed that acute malnutrition cases had a mortality rate of
18 percent, despite the admitted children being put on special diet to try save their
lives.
The local authorities in the districts of northern Uganda said because most of their
people lived in camps, revenue from taxes that would have helped to supplement
requirements for the health centres, had not been realised. Government grants, they
added, were not only inadequate and tardy but their disbursement was also restricted.
In Gulu, for example, the monthly health grant of about Ush 58 million (US $32,000)
had been received only once over the previous six months. A district disaster
committee set up to handle the situation had no money either.
NIGHT COMMUTERS
Relevant Links
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Human Rights
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Uganda
The team also visited people who leave their homes every evening and walk to sleep in
towns, for fear of being abducted. There are about 40,000 such people, mostly mothers
and their children, who have become known as "night commuters". Every evening, they
take refuge in major towns, sleeping outside hospitals and community centres out of
fear of LRA attacks.
Security sources said the LRA routinely abducted children to serve as sex slaves or to
forcibly join its fighting ranks. At least 12,000 children have been abducted over the
last two years, according to UNICEF.
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This service is hosted on the Infocom network
http://www.infocom.co.ug
