Rising numbers of rescued children "overwhelming" agencies in the north

Childcare agencies working with former captives of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in war-ravaged northern Uganda are getting overwhelmed by the increasing number of children rescued or escaping from rebel captivity, a relief worker said. Michael Oruni, the coordinator of a programme run by the Christian charity, World Vision, to rehabilitate and reintegrate former child captives into society in the northern region, said the capacity of the childcare centres had been stretched thin. World Vision's centre, for example, had been set up in 1995 to handle 250 children, he said. Now it had 500 children plus 141 internally displaced adults, and required twice as much funds as it had in order for it to manage. "We now have a budget gap of US $250,000 [of which] our partner sponsors have promised to meet $90,000," Oruni told IRIN from Gulu, 360 km north of the capital, Kampala. The water and sanitation facilities at the centre, he added, could hardly cope with the influx, adding that World Vision had hoped to decongest the centre by reuniting some of the children quickly with their families. But this had not been possible due to insecurity in the villages. "We wanted to reunite some of the children with their families, but we were told that they could not travel because some routes were very dangerous. We get at least 15 new arrivals every day. Now we are planning to just fly them to their district towns," Oruni said. Some of the children, he added, had come from Soroti District, to the east of Gulu, while others had come from Kitgum in the far north, near the border with Sudan. To cope with the influx, World Vision had recruited more counsellors and health workers, Oruni said, adding that international agencies, like the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), had helped with some mattresses tents and utensils. Another centre run by the Gulu Support the Children Organisation, an NGO that provides facilities for counselling, rehabilitation and reintegration of children traumatised by the war, was housing 228 children instead of the 150 it was designed to accommodate. "We need to improve the facilities. The accommodation, water and sanitation are inadequate to handle the current numbers. We need to find some playing equipment for these children to help them heal," Oruni said. He added that the numbers of children born in captivity had reached unprecedented levels and required special attention. "We need extra funding. I am proposing that we open a separate centre for child mothers. We now have over 70 children born in captivity camped with their mothers at the [World Vision] rehabilitation centre," he said. The Ugandan army reported last week that it had rescued 270 abductees, mainly children, from rebel captivity in May. The children were sent to the rehabilitation centres for counselling before they could be reintegrated with their families. About 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes, 80 percent of them women and children, by ongoing conflict between the Ugandan army and the LRA. The rebels, who have fought for 18 years, frequently attack villages and trading centres, murdering or torturing civilians and abducting children for forcible recruitment as soldiers, porters or sex slaves. At least 12,000 children have been abducted over the last two years, according to UNICEF.