New site identified for Kikagati returnees

The Ugandan government has identified and demarcated a new site on which it plans to resettle some 2,673 Ugandan returnees from Tanzania, who have been camped under difficult conditions at Kikagati, Mbarara District, in southern Uganda, according to a senior official at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). Martin Owuor, Assistant Commissioner in the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness, within OPM, told IRIN on Monday that his office was about to complete the demarcation of a government-owned parcel of land for the Kikagati returnees, in neighbouring Kamwenge District. The people involved are part of a group of 3,027 Ugandans, mainly ethnic Bakiga cattle herders, expelled from Tanzania - allegedly for voting against Tanzania's ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party in elections in October 2000, according to media reports in January. The expulsions happened after the CCM lost the elections in the northern Tanzanian area of Karagwe (Kagera District), where the long-time Ugandan settlers were living, the reports added. The returnees have been living in difficult conditions, with poor sanitation and the threat of disease in the waterlogged camp, where up to 42 deaths have been recorded - notably from malaria and cholera, according to humanitarian and media reports. An earlier assessment of conditions in the camp, carried out by Oxfam Great Britain, said the returnees were in "critical need" of water, shelter and household utensils, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Uganda. Conditions in the camp have deteriorated following the onset of the long rains, the East African weekly newspaper reported on 18 Monday. "The current bad sanitation will become critical and there will certainly be outbreaks of waterborne epidemics," it said. The government had initially offered to resettle the returnees in Kakadi, Kabale District, southwestern Uganda, where it had allocated some 100 square kilometres of land for a new camp, but the plans were bogged down by ethnic animosity and politics within the community there, which resented the idea, Owuor told IRIN. Owuor said he hoped the allocations would begin "in a week's time" after the completion of logistical plans, and that the resettlement programme should be completed within four weeks. "A lot is happening now. We only delayed to resettle these people because of politics within the local community," he said. Uganda's Ministry of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees had been promised support by aid agencies - including the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Samaritan's Purse - for resettlement of the returnees in Kabale, according to OCHA Uganda's humanitarian update for February. However, that exercise could not go ahead because of fears among the proposed host community and politicians that the population of 'outsiders' would outnumber them and determine results in local elections, it said. The Kabale area has more migrants than other areas of Uganda, and the host population was apprehensive of more 'foreigners' being resettled in the area, it added. Under the planned allocation at Kamwenge, a plot is to be given to each of the returnee families, soon after a meeting with humanitarian agencies scheduled for Thursday 21 March, which should complete logistical arrangements to that effect, according to Owuor. "As we speak now, the demarcation of plots is about to end. I am confident that we shall move them very soon," he added.