‘Improved security’ benefits IDPs

Improvements in security and a relative decrease in rebel activity in recent months had raised hopes that increasing numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) across Uganda could soon be able to return to their homes, UNOCHA reported on Thursday. Notwithstanding recent attacks, most notably that on a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) vehicle on Saturday in which six people were killed, a downward trend in raids by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Gulu and Kitgum Districts over time meant the district administrations were planning to resettle the estimated 340,000 IDPs living in camps in the area, it stated. A combination of peace negotiations, the heavy deployment of Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) soldiers along the border with Sudan, and the apparent withdrawal of Sudanese government support to the LRA meant that the security situation in Gulu and Kitgum had been “relatively calm” in recent months, UNOCHA said in a humanitarian update for July/August.

In Bundibugyo District, southwest Ugandan, many IDPs were now able to leave their camps during the day in order to access cultivable land nearby, OCHA reported. Although a majority of the estimated 90,000 IDPs were still returning to the camps at night, fearing attacks by the rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), some small groups had felt secure enough to move permanently to areas without protective Ugandan army detachments, it said. However, there has been no formal guarantee of security by either the district authorities or the army, the report added.

Although UNOCHA reported the east and northeast of the country had seen “a great reduction in road ambushes... and literally no cattle rustling between clans”, over 88,000 IDPs in neighbouring Katakwi District were still being forced to remain in camps due to the fear of violent raids from Karamojong pastoralists. Sanitation in the camps was reported to be “very poor”, and most did not have access to a health facility, it said. Since IDPs only had very limited access to cultivable land, the food security of households had been “highly affected”, UNOCHA warned.