Landslides hinder Bundibugyo relief deliveries

Continued heavy rains, flooding and landslides in Bundibugyo District, western Uganda, are hindering the delivery of urgently needed relief food to over 60,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) living in camps in the district, according to relief workers.

The floods and landslides have caused at least 14 deaths in Bundibugyo District and, anticipating a cholera outbreak, NGOs and the local health authorities have established a mobile clinic, according to humanitarian sources.

Soil erosion resulting from the heavy rains has also delayed food deliveries to several camps in the area, they added.

"Poor access for relief convoys to Bundibugyo is an ongoing problem," Jane Namulindwa, Information Officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Uganda told IRIN on Wednesday.

"There is only one road into Bundibugyo and, by any standards, it is a bad road. Relief trucks generally need a couple of days of sunshine to be able to deliver food to the area," she said.

A landslide on 2 November in the IDP camp at Natandi Trading Centre completely destroyed some 20 homes, killing 14 people, UNOCHA reported, citing a 5 November report from Medecins sans frontieres - France (MSF-F).

Namulindwa said there were some areas of Bundibugyo which were particularly prone to landslides due to the hilly terrain.

"The problem is exacerbated by the fact that pressure on land use has forced many people to settle on the hillsides, causing soil erosion and eventually landslides," she said.

Despite remaining on stand-by in Uganda following the murder of six employees in Bunia, across the border in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had released non-food items including cooking pots, blankets, plastic sheeting and jerry cans to camp residents, OCHA reported.

Anticipating an outbreak of cholera, MSF-F and the Bundibugyo District Health Authority had established a mobile clinic in Ntandi camp, it said.

The UK-based nongovernmental organisation Oxfam had distributed iron sheets and other building materials to those IDPs who had lost their homes in the floods, it added.