Mines to be cleared ahead of IDP resettlement

Ugandan authorities have set up a team of experts to locate and remove landmines from areas of the war-affected north before civilians who fled the conflict in the region are allowed to return to their villages, a senior government official has said. The army announced on Monday that some of the 1.7 million people displaced by the conflict would start going back to their villages because the security situation has improved in northern Uganda. However, parliamentarians from the region said it is too early to send people back to their homes because their security cannot be guaranteed yet. "A team has been set up to carry out the needed assessment in areas affected by mines," said Christine Aporu Amongin, the minister in charge of disaster preparedness. "They will de-mine the areas of Soroti, Amuria and Lira to make them safe from non-detonated explosive devices as a decisive factor for the imminent return of the internally displaced persons to their homes," she told IRIN on Tuesday. Mine awareness training, the minister added, would also be undertaken among the internally displaced peoples (IDPs), many of whom have lived in camps since the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) started its campaign of violence in the northern districts in a bid to undermine the government in the mid-1980s. A report released in 2005 by the Uganda Campaign to Ban Landmines said at least 425 people had been killed by landmines in the country since 1998. Another 385 have had their limbs amputated by exploding mines in northern Uganda alone. Amongin said a gradual movement of people had started, with some of them moving from the major camps to smaller settlements nearer to their former homes. She, however, acknowledged that resettlement would be an enormous undertaking, adding that it was feared small gangs of LRA rebels could still carry out surprise raids on civilians to disrupt the effort. The army, she added, was securing areas that had been declared safe to prevent LRA incursions, while the government was distributing a "resettlement package" of household items, iron sheets, food, seeds and farming implements, including ox-drawn ploughs. Army spokesman Maj Felix Kulaigye, had said the resettlement process would not extend to the Acholi sub-region where remnants of LRA fighters still roam the countryside. He said camps in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts would be decongested with small settlements being established in areas where IDPs could easily access their farms. Andrew Martin, an official of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Lira district, said of the 18,000 people camped in urban areas last September, 7,000 had since relocated to smaller camps near their villages.