Official raises prospect of IDP returns

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Gulu District, northern Uganda, have been told by a senior official that they will be able to return to their homes by the end of the year, the semi-official ‘New Vision’ newspaper reported on Monday. Gulu District Council chairman Walter Ochora, an elected representative, told residents of Anaka IDP camp that a peace programme initiated in the area with the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) meant that it would be safe for many IDPs in the north to leave the camps by December. Ochora called on IDPs returning to their villages of origin to “work closely with the army deployed in the area so that the peace process goes on well without anyone doubting one another.” Whilst appealing to the IDPs to guard against rebels and their activities, he told them to encourage the return of peace to the Acholi sub-region (Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts) “by talking peace everywhere, everybody.” WFP estimates there are 340,000 IDPs living in camps in Acholiland, fearing attacks from the LRA, led by self-styled mystic Joseph Kony. UNOCHA reported in its humanitarian update for July/August on Thursday 6 September that a combination of peace negotiations, heavy Ugandan army deployment along the border with Sudan, and the apparent withdrawal of Sudanese government support to the LRA meant that the security situation in much of the north had been “relatively calm” in recent months. However, isolated attacks by groups of suspected LRA rebels, including an attack on a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) vehicle in which six people were killed, had continued.