Tough life for IDPs in Pader camp

The drive from Uganda's capital, Kampala, to the northern district of Pader is a 440-km adventure through a dense brush of savannah, punctuated by burnt out shells of vehicles, deserted homesteads and closed schools. Occasionally, one sees an armed soldier on the roadside looking out for the danger that might lurk in the surrounding bushes. At Lapur internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp near Pajule, north of Pader town, a stench from the settlement's overflowing latrines and garbage fills the air. There is the sight of half-naked children, many of them visibly malnourished, frolicking around the compound. Lapur is one of 200 such settlements across northern Uganda where hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the 18-year conflict that has wreaked havoc in northern Uganda, have sought shelter after fleeing their villages because of attacks by rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Along the road from Pader to Pajule, swathes of fertile land lay abandoned after virtually the entire population in the district had fled their villages for the relative safety of the camps. Unable to cultivate their fields, hundreds of thousands of people are now dependent on food aid. Officials of the UN World Food Programme told IRIN that the agency was providing most of the food needs of the displaced population. "We eat twice a day," said Simon Orach, an IDP at Lapur told IRIN. "We eat at midday and at night when we go to sleep, but that is when we have enough food. He said he supplemented the food he receives from WFP by selling mud bricks. Sometimes I don’t get buyers and we do not access our gardens, as we are restricted by the army from going far from the camp," Orach added. The military has imposed restrictions on movement in a bid to protect the civilians from rebel attacks. Lt Paddy Ankunda, army spokesman in the northern region told IRIN it was not yet safe in the villages. "There are still pockets of rebel remnants, so we are not encouraging civilians to return to villages - at least not yet," he said. The dusty road to Pader passes through Barlonyo IDP camp, near Lira, further south. This was the scene of one of the LRA's most brutal massacres in February, during which, more than 200 people were killed. Months after the Barlonyo massacre, victims of subsequent LRA attacks were receiving treatment in Lira hospital. Jackson Odongo, 56, lay on one hospital bed, his arm in plaster and his abdomen punctured by a bullet. "I had gone to collect firewood when I encountered five rebels, three of whom were armed and the others unarmed," he told IRIN. "They asked me to follow them and when I resisted, they shot me then left - thinking that I was dead." In the same hospital, several government soldiers were also receiving treatment, having been wounded in encounters with LRA fighters. At Lapur IDP Camp, the men complained of boredom and authorities said redundancy had led to moral decadence and high levels of crime. Other residents complained of lack of adequate medical care from the single health facility that serves all the camp's IDPs. Hellen Akello, 45, who is widowed, was looking after eight children. "The kids are always sick and the treatment is expensive," she told IRIN. "Many children are dying in this camp." Other IDPs said they had nowhere to bury their dead because the cemetery near the local Roman Catholic mission was now full. "We dig graves only to find that somebody else had been buried there and we are not allowed to take them to our homes that are inaccessible," David Kidega, a 35-year-old camp resident told IRIN. Matters are made worse by the trauma that many IDPs have experienced over the year. The medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières, said in a recent survey that a mental-health survey in Pader town centre had found that almost all respondents had been exposed to severe traumatic events since 2002. Some 63 percent reported the disappearance or abduction of a family member; 58 percent experienced the death of a family member due to the insurgency; 79 percent had witnessed torture; and 40 percent had witnessed at least one killing. Security better - gov't The Ugandan government said recently that violence in the north was dying down as a result of the unrelenting military campaign against the insurgents. It added that the improvement in security, particularly in Lira and Gulu districts, had led to some movement of IDPs from camps in urban areas to those situated in the rural areas. In Gulu, the sense of improving security is emphasised by the reduction in the number of the so-called night commuters, children who leave their homes every night to seek shelter in relatively safer compounds, mostly in urban areas. At Lacor hospital, where about 15,000 children used to seek refuge at night, the number had come down to 3,600. However, hundreds of severely malnourished children are admitted in a special ward in the hospital. The Noah’s Ark centre used to shelter tens of thousands of children every night, but when IRIN visited the centre recently, not more than 3,000 were present. Relief workers in the region said the situation remains fluid. "The LRA have broken into cells of a few fighters who dress in civilian clothes," a relief source told IRIN. "In smaller numbers, they are more vicious to civilians, so it is not correct to say the war is ending yet - it is still too early." The LRA started fighting the government in northern Uganda in 1988. Its political objectives remain unclear, with its leaders saying they want to replace the Ugandan government with another based on the biblical Ten Commandments. At least 1.6 million people have been driven from their homes and an estimated 20,000 children abducted, being forced to fight for the rebels or serve as sexual slaves. Various efforts to end the war through peaceful means have failed so far, although religious leaders insist that the war can be settled peacefully. The Ugandan government, however, favours a military solution to the conflict.