Government to allocate emergency funds for IDPs

The Ugandan cabinet has approved an emergency allocation of 1.2 billion shillings (about US $630,000) to aid civilians displaced by an 18-year rebel war in the north and east, a senior government official has said. The budget was in response to an unexpected surge in the numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) at the beginning of 2004, following a spate of attacks by Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on civilian targets, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees Moses Ali told IRIN. "The budget for 1.2 billion shillings has been passed by cabinet and now goes to parliament. The bulk is for food supplies to be distributed as soon as it comes in," he said. "But we have not decided precisely how all of it is to be spent." Ali said an assessment of the needs of recently displaced people had been carried out in March. "The assessment team came back saying that urgent funds are needed to prevent food shortages and other emergencies. Since then, there have been further displacements in Adjumani [in the northwest]," he told IRIN. "In the last few weeks, there were 20,000 to 30,000 people displaced by the enemy [LRA] in a series of attacks," he added. Ali explained that IDPs camps in Lira District - one of the worst-affected areas in recent times - had been concentrated in larger camps to make them more secure and easier for the army to patrol. "When I was in Lira this month, there were at least 20,000 IDPs in each camp, so the restructuring into larger camps looks to have been completed," he said. He also said the biggest camps in the north were being spread out to improve the quality of life and make humanitarian access easier. But he repeated the government's earlier rejection of calls from parliament to declare the north a disaster area. "The situation is now under control," he said. "In some quarters the situation is even relaxing, enabling us to decongest settlements and provide schools, sanitary systems and health." The number of civilians who have fled their homes in Uganda's conflict-ridden north and east has grown exponentially in recent years. At the start of 2003, the UN World Food Programme estimated that 800,000 civilians had been displaced by the fear of LRA attacks. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 1.6 million Ugandans are now living in IDPs camps because of the war. Most people fled because they feared being killed or abducted by LRA rebels, Ugandan officials said. The rebels repeatedly target civilians and swell their ranks by kidnapping children and forcibly recruiting them. In February, the rebels attacked an IDP camp in Barlonyo, Lira District. They shot, burned, bludgeoned or hacked to death over 200 people, according to local officials. Since then the rebels have continued to attack villages, roadways and footpaths in the north, killing and abducting civilians. Northern Uganda's oldest refugee camps, such as Pabbo, which houses 60,000 refugees in congested conditions near Gulu town, have been in place since the war began. The camps were originally populated by northerners fearing government reprisals against them and their tribesman, but quickly filled up with civilians fleeing the LRA.