Resettlement of Acholi-Pii refugees under way

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has completed the first phase of the relocation of some 23,000 Sudanese refugees who last week fled their camp in northern Uganda, following an attack by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). In a statement released on Tuesday, the UNHCR said the refugees, displaced when the LRA attacked the Acholi-Pii camp in Pader District on 5 August, killing at least 60 people, had reached safety in central Uganda. According to the statement, UNHCR advised about 17,000 of the refugees, who had fled to nearby Rachkoko, to walk 60 kilometres overnight to neighbouring Lira District. After reaching Rachkoko, they had joined another 3,000 refugees who had fled Acholi-Pii, and the whole group was transferred to an existing refugee site in Kiryondongo, about 100 km southwest of Lira town. "At Kiryondongo, they joined [yet] another 3,000 refugees who had arrived on their own, having walked through the bush for several days after the attack," the statement said. The emergency operation began on 7 August and was completed on 11 August, with a record number of 7,500 people moved in one day - the 9th, according to the statement. As an emergency measure, the refugee agency said it had hired 80 commercial trucks to complement the existing fleet of four UNHCR trucks and five from the International Organisation of Migration. "Refugees who were too ill or too weak to walk were picked up on the road about 18 kilometres north of Lira," the UNHCR statement said. UNHCR went on to say that the group would be resettled at a safer location in Kyangwali, near the shores of Lake Albert, which is currently hosting about 6,800 other refugees. "The refugees are expected to remain up to a maximum of one month in Kiryondongo, until the site identified by UNHCR and the authorities is ready to receive them," it said. The agency said hospital tents had been erected at the Kiryondongo site by Ugandan Red Cross, while each of the families had received an emergency food ration from the World Food Programme and a 20 by 15 metre plot to construct their temporary shelter on. They had also received blankets and jerry cans. UNHCR is currently registering the new arrivals at Kiryondongo, and has so far completed between 75 and 80 percent of the exercise, according to the statement. UNHCR said it would continue to maintain its presence in Lira for a "couple of days" as a few refugee families had still been trickling into the area, until it was sure that everyone was safe, it added. Meanwhile, the LRA on Sunday released the four International Rescue Committee (IRC) employees it had abducted from the Acholi-Pii camp on 5 August, the organisation said. Media reports said Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni was on Tuesday set to meet northern members of parliament. According to the Tuesday edition of the Monitor newspaper Museveni was to meet MPs from constituencies in Pader, Kitgum and Gulu districts in Gulu town over the current state of insecurity in the north.