Katakwi concern amid generally good food security

Insecurity over the past year continues to keep some 85,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in protected camps in Katakwi District, eastern Uganda, where aid agencies report widespread but not life-threatening food problems, according to the lastest Uganda report from the Famine Early Warning System Network. The IDPs, in Kapelebyong and Usuk Counties in Katakwi District, faced moderate food insecurity due to low household food stocks and limited access to alternative sources of food, FEWS Net reported. Access to clean drinking water is also poor, the USAID-supported network said. The results of a nutritional assessment undertaken by the nongovernmental organisation Oxfam in November indicated that global acute malnutrition in the IDP settlements was between 3.3 and 5.22 percent, while severe acute malnutrition was betwwen 0.5 and 2.7 percent, it added. With the exception of Katakwi and Moroto Districts, the latter in Karamoja region in the northeast, national food projections were good up to June, when the next harvest is expected, FEWS Net stated. Adequate supplies and low crop prices in major markets suggested that households dependent on them for food would have better access this year than last, it added. In the north, normal harvests in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts (known as Acholiland) had complemented food aid distributions to enhance households' access to food, the network reported. Access to pasture and water was generally good in pastoral areas of the southwest, though dry season conditions in Karamjoa region had set in motion significant livestock movements, it said. In the neighbouring districts of Kapchorwa, Katakwi, Kuma and Lira, only a few pastoralists and animals had so far crossed into traditional dry-grazing areas, according to the report. "These districts have been reluctant to allow them access to the grazing areas following attacks there by armed pastoralists in the recent past," it said.