IRC to continue operating in the north

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) will continue to operate its humanitarian programmes in northern Uganda, following the "safe release" on 10 August of five of its staff members whom the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) had earlier this month abducted, the agency stated on Thursday. The IRC workers were abducted on 5 August, in an early morning LRA raid on the Acholi-Pii refugee camp in Pader District, in which at least 60 people were killed and 24,000 Sudanese refugees put to flight. The attack prompted the Ugandan authorities and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to close the camp and temporarily transfer the refugees to Kiryandongo refugee settlement in Masindi District, central Uganda, where they are currently awaiting final resettlement in Hoima District in the west. Timothy Bishop, the IRC country director for Uganda, told IRIN from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on Thursday that the IRC was currently providing thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) seeking shelter in the northern town of Kitgum with water and sanitation assistance. "Efforts are under way with the Kitgum District Disaster Management Committee and the Italian NGO AVSI to increase safe water and latrine coverage for IDPs in the town and at the Kitgum government hospital," Bishop said. Over 10,000 people have been displaced in Kitgum District alone since the LRA began intensifying its attacks on northern Uganda in June this year, Radio Uganda reported on Thursday. Bishop said that since the Acholi-Pii attack, the IRC had expanded medical facilities, built water and sanitation facilities, and begun food distributions for the new refugee caseload, while coordinating its activities on "a regular basis" with the office of the Ugandan prime minister, UNHCR, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the US State Department. The IRC is also in the process of discussing with the authorities in neighbouring Lira District, the distribution of non-food items to the hundreds of IDPs currently seeking shelter in Lira town and surrounding areas, according to Bishop. According to analysts, the LRA's renewed attacks on civilian camps, killings, abductions and destruction of property are in retaliation for the Ugandan government's military operation aimed at rooting out the group from its bases in southern Sudan. The government campaign, code-named Operation Iron Fist, was launched in March with the permission of the Sudanese government, which had previously supported the LRA, but condemned it after relations improved with Uganda. The WFP this week said the recent LRA attacks in northern Uganda had rendered about half a million people vulnerable and in need of humanitarian food aid. Laura Melo, the WFP's regional public information officer, told IRIN on Tuesday that although harvesting was expected to take place in August and September, insecurity was forcing the northern Ugandan population to abandon their fields. "We appeal to LRA to allow us to get food to the communities and let the people go to their fields," she said. Recent indications by the government that it was willing to hold peace talks with the LRA, as a result of pressure from religious and civic groups opposed to a military solution, are however a positive sign of a possible lasting resolution of the northern Uganda conflict, according to analysts. The Ugandan media reported last week that President Yoweri Museveni had written a letter to Joseph Kony, the LRA leader, detailing terms for peace talks to end the insurgency in northern Uganda. Rose Atieno, who heads the Kampala-based Centre for Conflict Resolution, told IRIN that the decision by Museveni's government to "talk with the LRA" was "encouraging". "We are quite happy. For a long time there was a belief that military tactics alone would solve the problem. But that has not worked. Now mediation and negotiations are coming in, and that may bring a brighter future," she said.