Resettlement date set for Kikagati returnees

The Ugandan government has finalised plans to resettle some 2,673 Ugandan returnees from Tanzania, who have been camped at Kikagati, southern Uganda, under difficult sanitary conditions, and will begin the resettlement process on 8 April. Martin Owuor, Assistant Commissioner in the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness, within the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), told IRIN on Thursday a plan had been drawn up to begin the transfer of the returnees from their current location in Kikagati, Mbarara District, to a new site in neighbouring Kamwenge District. Each of the 700 returnee families in the camp will receive a two-hectare plot on the new location, according to Owuor. "Now we have everything in place. We have a team from humanitarian agencies and from my office who are involved in demarcating the plots," he said. 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 district of Karagwe, Kagera Region, where the long-time Ugandan settlers were living, the reports added. The returnees have been living in difficult conditions in a water-logged camp, with poor sanitation and the threat of disease, 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, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Uganda said in its February 2002 update. The Ugandan government was forced to abandon initial plans to resettle the group in Kakadi, Kabale District, southwestern Uganda, after the proposed host community protested against the plans, Owuor told IRIN. The new resettlement date of 8 April was set following two logistical meetings in the past week between the OPM and several humanitarian aid agencies which have pledged support for the resettlement of the returnees in Kabale, according to Owuor. "From here, we want each of the families to go directly to the land allocated to them and settle immediately," he said.