Security boost to IDP returns in west

Improving security in western Uganda has allowed increasing numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Rwenzori region to return voluntarily to their homes, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. "It is very satisfying to see more concrete examples of IDPs returning home and organisations concentrating their efforts in the areas of return, rather than cementing efforts in the [IDP] camps," OCHA said in its latest humanitarian update. Despite some minor incidents along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), efforts were under way between the district administrations of Bundibugyo, Kasese and Kabarole to organise the transportation of IDPs back to their homes, OCHA stated in its report covering the month of March. "This commendable effort is done on the initiative of the districts themselves. District officials in Bundibugyo are actively encouraging IDPs to return home, and so far the process is going on gradually," OCHA said. Following an intensified campaign by the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) against Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels, the government announced in November 2001 that IDPs in the west could return to their homes in Kabarole, Kasese, Bundibugyo, Kamwenge and Kyenjojo. At that time, some 70,000 people were forced to live in displacement camps as a result of attacks by the ADF, which was operating from the Rwenzori mountains and from eastern DRC. In northern Uganda, however, rising insecurity linked to a government offensive against Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) appeared to have hindered plans for the dismantling of camps housing several hundred thousand IDPs, OCHA said. With the deployment of large numbers of Ugandan troops against LRA bases in southern Sudan, and the consequent dilution of the army's presence in Gulu District, the security situation in the district had "deteriorated sharply" during March, OCHA reported. Groups of 40 to 50 heavily armed men had been sighted moving throughout the district, as opposed to small pockets of rebels from Kilak hills who had been, over the last months, engaged in mostly low-level violence and looting, OCHA said. "With the incidents having taken place to the northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest of Gulu town, there can no longer be talk about safe areas where people are likely to start moving out of the camps in the near future," the report stated. OCHA quoted the residents of Pagak camp in Lamogi sub-county, for example, as saying they had now changed their minds about planning for return. The Ugandan government had declared its intention to see IDPs return home from March onwards, and the Department of Disaster Preparedness in the Office of the Prime Minister had drafted a national policy on IDPs designed to address, among other things, substantial issues related to their return, OCHA said in March. Until February, an improving security situation in the north and increasing isolation of the LRA had facilitated the spontaneous return of several thousand IDPs to their home areas, humanitarian sources told IRIN in March. However, as a consequence of Kony's renewed activities, talk of resettlement had "drastically reduced" in several areas, and some nongovernmental organisations had restricted field activities to a minimum, OCHA said. Prospects for IDP returns now appeared to lie with the final defeat of the LRA in southern Sudan. "All stakeholders are hoping that LRA will soon be no more, and peace will return to northern Uganda, giving the IDPs the needed security to return back to their homes," the report stated.