Gov’t, aid agencies urged to do more for war-ravaged north

The Uganda government and international aid agencies should increase their efforts to protect and respond to the needs of internally displaced people in the war-ravaged north, a senior United Nations official has said. "They [internally displaced people] live in unacceptable conditions, are not getting adequate basic services and are unprotected," said Dennis McNamara, head of the Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, on Thursday. McNamara spoke to reporters upon his return from a weeklong, multidonor mission to Uganda with representatives from various countries. The mission met senior government officials, UN agencies, NGOs and community leaders, both in the capital, Kampala, and in the conflict-affected districts of Gulu and Kitgum. "We have to work to improve the situation," he said, adding that it was essentially the Ugandan government's responsibility to protect displaced populations. "When we visit Kitgum and Gulu and we are told that it [the war between the government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)] is nearly over, then we are escorted by two armoured cars and 35 soldiers, it is inconsistent with what we have been told," McNamara noted. Northern Uganda is the scene of a brutal rebellion pitting the national army against the LRA. The conflict has displaced about 1.7 million people; a figure McNamara said was the third largest internal displacement in the world. The rebellion, he added, had impacted on aid operations in neighbouring Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In Sudan, for instance, delivery of humanitarian assistance in the south, particularly in West Equatoria, had been seriously affected by LRA activity. It has been estimated that the LRA has more fighters in southern Sudan and northeastern DRC than in northern Uganda. Insecurity was also threatening to disrupt the repatriation process of Sudanese refugees from DRC and the Central African Republic to their homes in southern Sudan. "They can’t return people into a conflict area," McNamara said. The mortality rates amongst displaced people in the camps scattered across northern Uganda were three times the national figures and twice those in the Darfur region of western Sudan. A recent survey by the UN found that up to 1,000 people, mainly children, were dying every week in the camps. "This must change," McNamara said, before announcing that some reforms had been proposed. These include the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, taking over the protection and management of the displaced. "For the first time, we have got the key actors - the UN, the government, the donors - all committed to some extent to try to make some change. We can't have business as usual. We can't do 10 more years of the same," he said. McNamara said displaced people living in the camps could only return to their homes voluntarily: "We can only support that return if it is voluntary, if it is safe, and if it is viable. If it is not, we will not be able to support it." The LRA has waged war in northern Uganda for close to two decades, kidnapping thousands of boys and girls and forcing them to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves.