Over 400,000 displaced persons

While internally-displaced people (IDPs) have benefitted from recentincreased stability in northern Uganda, the humanitarian and security situation in the southwest has deteriorated since the end of 1998, ICRC said. In a report received by IRIN on Thursday, ICRC said that a majority of the estimated 320,000 displaced people living in 28 camps in the Gulu and Kitgum areas of the north now had regular access to farmland. The upcoming harvest, which is expected to be very good, should improve food security conditions for those IDPs, although the humanitarian situation in the north remained fragile, it said. In the Rwenzori mountains region of the southwest, on the other hand, a serious deterioration in the security situation had provoked massive displacement of civilians, mainly in Bundibugyo district where there were now an estimated 85,000 IDPs, the report said. A recent ICRC assessment found urgent needs in Bundibugyo's 46 overcrowded IDP camps, particularly in the areas of hygiene, non-food items and medical monitoring, the report added. There were another 23,000 IDPs in Kasese district.