Humanitarian situation in north still critical - UNICEF

Sustained violence, displacement and poverty in northern Uganda continue to exacerbate an already strained humanitarian situation, the UN children's agency, UNICEF, said. In its January humanitarian situation report released on Wednesday, the agency highlighted the plight of the people in the war-affected north, noting that children's rights to basic healthcare, safe water, primary education, protection and shelter remained largely unfulfilled. UNICEF said acute malnutrition rates in the region were in the range of 7 to 21 percent, while access to boreholes was just 10 to 29 percent among the estimated 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), 80 percent of whom are children and women residing in more than 200 camps. "Twenty three percent of children are unable to attend school and 50 percent of schools in the districts have been displaced," the report added. Chulho Hyun, UNICEF spokesman in Kampala, told IRIN that the figures were not representative of the whole region, as many areas were inaccessible due to the ongoing hostilities between government troops and rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). UNICEF was helping in the provision of learning centres, including centres for early-child development, in IDP camps, where basic care was given to children as they were prepared for formal education. Based on recent figures by the Ugandan finance ministry, the report expressed concern over the trend of poverty in the country, which was especially acute in the north, where an estimated 70 percent of the population lived below the poverty line. According to UNICEF, access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene services remained critical, including the prevention of cholera and other water-borne diseases in the IDP camps, which are expected with the advent of heavy seasonal rains in March. "Priority actions in 2005 include construction of 200, five-stance latrines, 25 water systems, repair of 120 boreholes and drilling of 20 boreholes to enable the provision of 15 litres of water per person, per day," the statement noted. Despite recent improvements in security, UNICEF said that each evening, the threat of attacks and abductions by the LRA still drove approximately 30,000 children, known as "night commuters", to seek the relative safety of urban centres in the towns of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader. On 22 February, a limited ceasefire between the government and the rebels expired, but the government said peace talks to end hostilities would continue. However, hostilities resumed almost immediately, with at least 10 people killed in renewed clashes. UNICEF anticipated that the demand for emergency shelter and household items would rise in relation to voluntary relocations by displaced families to areas closer to their communities of origin. "Spontaneous IDP returns are already occurring in some areas - notably in the eastern districts [Kaberamaido, Katakwi and Soroti] - and are likely to progress, depending on political and security developments," the report said. Northern Uganda has been devastated by the conflict for the past 19 years. The LRA, notorious for its brutality, is fighting to overthrow the Uganda government, supposedly to replace it with one based on the Biblical 10 Commandments. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed.