War-affected civilians receive reconstructive surgery

Civilians in northern Uganda who were mutilated by rebel fighters during two decades of war have begun to receive reconstructive surgery, the international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said.

Many of the patients have had their lips, ears, noses or fingers cut off as part of the extensive violence directed at civilians in the region in recent years.

"In this round of interventions, individuals will undergo surgical procedures including the reconstruction of lips. Some of the victims have multiple mutilations," a statement from MSF said.

The operations - provided by MSF and Interplast Holland - started on Monday at St Joseph's Missionary Hospital in the northern district of Kitgum. The first 12 patients will be operated on this week.

"There is no greater offence to our sense of humanity than to see people who have been so deliberately and barbarically disfigured," said Christine Schmitz, head of mission for MSF in Uganda.

"When we were first confronted with victims of mutilation, some of whom had had their lips cut off, we quickly realised that reconstructive surgery would help enable them to regain some quality of life," she added. "The MSF team will also provide counselling so that these patients can learn to live with these horrifying experiences."

"We have selected these first patients based on the fact that their mutilation has made it impossible for them to lead a normal life," said Dr Rein Zeeman, a Dutch surgeon from Interplast Holland, a nonprofit organisation that sends plastic surgeons to developing countries to perform reconstructive surgery.

"You have to realise that it is almost impossible for a person without lips to eat or drink. We want to help this group as quickly as possible," he added.

Schmitz said most of the patients would require multiple surgical interventions, and additional rounds of surgery would be organised every three to six months, with both MSF and St. Joseph's hospital staff being involved in the patients' postoperative care.

Kitgum is one of three districts in northern Uganda that have been ravaged by a vicious civil war between government forces and the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The others are Gulu and Kitgum.

The LRA is notoriously brutal, routinely mutilating, torturing and abducting civilians. The conflict has driven approximately 1.6 million people from their homes to live in internally displaced persons' camps.