Gov't accused of violating refugee rights

An international refugee rights organisation has criticised the manner in which the Ugandan government last month carried out the relocation of Sudanese refugees from a camp in western Uganda, which ended in riots and the arrest of some refugees. The US-based Refugees International said although Uganda had a strong record of supporting refugees, its "forcible" removal of 16,000 Sudanese refugees from Kiryandongo camp, to the Western Nile region, threatened to wipe out this record. "Refugee descriptions of the move, having their homes burned and being herded into crowded trucks with no food or water for the long journey, suggest that the move was neither humane nor dignified," Refugees International said in a statement. "In addition, there are reports that more than 200 children were separated from their families." The refugees, originally displaced from Acholi-Pii camp, in Pader district, northern Uganda, when Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels overran and looted their camp in August 2002, had been temporarily settled in Kiryandongo camp in western Uganda. They had earlier protested against plans to relocate them to West Nile, saying they feared attacks by the LRA rebel group, which operated there. RI called for investigations into the alleged violations. It also urged UN refugee agency UNHCR and donors to make contingency plans to rush emergency aid to the refugees in West Nile region, in the event of renewed LRA attacks on their camps. "Insecurity is worsening in much of northern Uganda and could quickly destroy refugees' already-precarious livelihoods," it warned. Uganda hosts an estimated 190,000 refugees, of whom 160,000 are from Sudan. An official with the Ugandan Human Rights Commission, which recently sent a team to investigate the alleged violations, told IRIN that his officials had completed preliminary investigations into the claims but had found no evidence of extreme violence. "We went to all the camps in West Nile, we interviewed people and the concerned leaders. There were no deaths as had been reported in the media," Constantine Karusoke, who is in charge of the commission's claims and investigations department, told IRIN. An official at the UNHCR office in Kampala told IRIN that the situation had now calmed down and that the refugees were trying to settle down in their new camps. The camps, however, still lack basic infrastructure, according to the source. "The camps are still in a rudimentary state. A lot of work has to be done until they get to the level of other settlements," the official said.