| Uganda: Crisis Prompts Calls for UN Security Council to Act
April 4, 2006
Posted to the web April 5, 2006 Paul Redfern
Nairobi The unfolding crisis in northern Uganda is likely to be discussed at the UN Security Council in the coming weeks following the publication of two new reports last week and the visit of the United Nations Under-Secretary General Jan Egeland. According to a new report by 50 NGOs including Oxfam, Care, Save the Children and a host of Ugandan charities, the war in northern
Uganda is costing the country $85 million a year and amounts to double what the UK has paid to Kampala in aid from 1994 to 2001. A separate report says that northern Uganda is now suffering one of the worst rates of soil depletion in Africa, which could lead to dustbowls and starvation across large areas of the country. Rwanda and Burundi are also named as being among the areas worst affected in sub-Saharan Africa. The report says that more than 80 per cent of the continent's farmland is now plagued by severe degradation. The International Centre for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development says that population growth is leading to the over-exploitation of farmland, leading to the depletion of soil nutrients. The use of fertiliser is the lowest worldwide. "Population pressure now forces farmers to grow crop after crop, mining or depleting the soil of
nutrients while giving nothing back," the report says. Conflict in northern Uganda has exacerbated the situation. The report by 50 NGOS from the Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda calls for intervention by the UN to resolve the situation. It says that the UN Security Council must act "resolutely and without delay" to guarantee protection of civilians and humanitarian assistance in northern Uganda. Kevin Fitzcharles, the director of Care International, said that Mr Egeland was "clearly pushing the Security Council to act, yet none of his recommendations are being implemented. "It is time for the Security
Council to recognise that its failure to address this crisis is a scar on its record and undermines its credibility. The UN must act by passing a resolution urging the government of Uganda to protect its own people." Mr Egeland held high-level meetings in Kampala with Ugandan government officials and other international representatives on Friday before touring a camp in northern Uganda. The report says that more than 25,000 children have been abducted during 20 years of war and 250,000 children across the region currently receive no education at all. | 
