there is a humanitarian emergency in the country and the fool is busy decieving the world about markets!!!
Matek Uganda: Humanitarian Situation Worse in the North - Donors Email This Page Print This Page Visit The Publisher's Site 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 -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug
