| Northern Uganda death rate thrice Iraqs - report |
| FRANK NYAKAIRU |
| KAMPALA THE Rate of violent deaths in war-ravaged northern Uganda is three times higher than in Iraq, according to a report by 50 international and local agencies released yesterday. The report by the Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda says there are 146 violent deaths a week in northern Uganda or 0.17 violent deaths per 10,000 people per day. "Rates of violent death are three times higher that those reported in Iraq following the Allied Invasion in 2003," said the report, entitled "Counting the Cost: Twenty Years of War in Northern Uganda. The incidence of violent deaths in Iraq was 0.052 per 10,000 people per day. "Crude mortality rates are more than three times higher than those recorded in Darfur in October 2005," the new report added. But the government yesterday criticised the report for misrepresenting the situation in the north. Kathy Relleen, a policy adviser to Oxfam, one of the organisations behind the report, said the Ugandan government, the rebel army and the international community "must fully acknowledge the true scale and horror of the situation in northern Uganda". The report attacked UPDF's Operation Iron Fist inside southern Sudan, which it said, "instead of crushing the rebels," had "stirred up a hornets' nest driving most of the LRA back into northern Uganda where it began a brutal campaign". The report puts the cost of the war in northern Uganda at $1.7b over the past two decades. It said this is equivalent to the United States' total aid to Uganda between 1994 and 2002. It said 25,000 children have been abducted in the region and that 95 per cent of the people in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader are living in absolute poverty. "Twenty years of brutal violence is a scar on the world's conscience," Relleen said in a press release. "The government of Uganda must act resolutely and without delay, both to guarantee the effective protection of civilians and to work with all sides to secure a just and lasting peace." She said the international community had done little to respond to the conflict "and to support and encourage the government of Uganda to actually make the protection of civilians its first priority". The report calls upon the international community, including the United Nations Security Council "to give the conflict the attention it deserves". "We've seen 1.8 million people who have been forced to live in extremely squalid conditions, subject to terrible illnesses," Relleen said. "I mean the basic facts in this report show that we're seeing deaths that should not be allowed to continue." The government and the Army were quick to issue statements yesterday rebutting the contents of the report, and criticising it for "reducing the problem of northern Uganda to figures". "The government is confident that peace is returning very soon to northern Uganda because the army has ably reduced the military capacity of the LRA who have now fled to DR Congo," said Media Center Director Robert Kabushenga. He said the report was misrepresenting the facts in northern Uganda. An army statement said, "Life and work in Northern Uganda is steadily and surely returning to normalcy." The statement signed by UPDF spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye added, "There is no more LRA to talk about, so those who talk about scaling our engagement with LRA are simply daydreaming." The Media Center also announced a new programme, the Joint Country Coordinating and Monitoring Committee on Northern Uganda, aimed at kick-starting rehabilitation and reconstruction. The new mechanism, which commences tomorrow, will bring several state and civil society actors together. The release of the report on northern Uganda coincided with the visit of Jan Egeland, the United Nation's emergency relief coordinator for the region. Egeland, who once called the situation in northern Uganda "intolerable" and the world's "most forgotten humanitarian disaster", arrived in Uganda yesterday at the start of a nine-day East African mission to assess the humanitarian situation in the north and Sudan's Darfur region. Egeland will visit war-displaced people's camps and hold talks with government officials. |
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