Friends
New camps for the internally displaced (IDPs) are springing up. The Odokmit
camp is only about a year old, sitting in the bush about 50 km from Pader town,
home to some seven thousand people in 1,618 households. Hillary Kupajo, the
URCS relief officer in charge of Kitgum and Pader, says that Odokmit camp was
selected for support because it is one of the new camps and is fairly isolated
from others, with limited access to relief. The camp is now overflowing with
displaced people from Lira, mainly victims of the so-called ‘Barlonyo incident’
of 2004, where more than 300 people were killed in and around the Barlonyo camp
outside the town of Lira. Approximately 300,000 IDPs are in nine camps in Lira
town alone. The attackers then burned the camp to the ground, leaving another
4,800 people homeless again.
As I keep on raising these numbers, I keep on wondering to the long term effect
of these camps. What is going to happen in a long term when we have people in a
region that decided not to take their children to school, but decided to
recruit them into murdering their parents? What is the long term effect of the
adults that passed through these trauma times face? But what is the long term
effect are we as Ugandans at large going to pass through to live with these
friends that have decided to feed on Acholi violence? Those are very disturbing
questions and you will not know their importance tonight, till when such an
Acholi from those camps come face to face with your family of kids that you
took to schools to live a “normal” life. Our governors must raise up and write
strict but stringent laws on Uganda books, to protect some of us that have
spent all our lives living as a civil society from Acholi that have lived in
only violence. Elvina Namaguna wrote a piece entitled Northern Uganda: a
thousand deaths a week and it was published by Federacion Internacional de
sociedades de la cruz roja y de la media luna Roja
Ugandans we need to discuss Acholi violence candidly.
Northern Uganda: a thousand deaths a week
Elvina Nawaguna for the Uganda Red Cross Society*
Some 1.7 million people in Uganda’s far north – towards the Sudan border – are
living in incredibly harsh conditions in about 200 internally displaced
people’s camps. Of those, the UN and other international agencies have access
to only about 20 camps. The rest are ‘off limits’ due to the brutal fighting
between government forces and rebel forces, most notably the Lord’s Resistance
Army, which has gone on for twenty years. About one thousand people die in
these camps every week from violence or disease, most often malaria and
HIV/AIDS.
For the last several years, the Ugandan Red Cross has been providing
humanitarian aid to some of the camps – distributing hygiene and family kits
and promoting sanitation and healthy living. The conflict is concentrated in
the districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Lira and Apac.
New camps for the internally displaced (IDPs) are springing up. The Odokmit
camp is only about a year old, sitting in the bush about 50 km from Pader town,
home to some seven thousand people in 1,618 households.
Hillary Kupajo, the URCS relief officer in charge of Kitgum and Pader, says
that Odokmit camp was selected for support because it is one of the new camps
and is fairly isolated from others, with limited access to relief. The camp is
now overflowing with displaced people from Lira, mainly victims of the
so-called ‘Barlonyo incident’ of 2004, where more than 300 people were killed
in and around the Barlonyo camp outside the town of Lira.
Approximately 300,000 IDPs are in nine camps in Lira town alone. The attackers
then burned the camp to the ground, leaving another 4,800 people homeless
again.
Betty Akwang is among the inhabitants of Odokmit, living in a little hut with
her husband and three children – and the fourth on the way. As she washes her
dishes in front of the hut the children play around. A broken jerry can and a
small saucepan lie almost neglected at the side of the house.
Among Akwang’s utensils to wash are a number of metallic cups, plates and a
huge saucepan that she is using to wash her dirty utensils. Akwang explains
that she received the utensils from the Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS).
“It has made collecting water and cooking easier for me,” she says, beaming.
Before this, all Akwang had were two small saucepans and a small cooking pot
which she used to collect water from the stream about 2 kilometres away. With
her small pot and broken jerry can, Akwang and her children would have to make
several trips to the well to have sufficient water for the day.
Akwang now collects water in the 20 litre jerry can that she received from
Uganda Red Cross. Some of the water she transfers to her big saucepan, which
has a lid to keep the water clean. Akwang is one of the over 15,000
beneficiaries of URCS’s assistance programme, supported by the European Union
through the Danish Red Cross. The third phase of this programme was concluded
at the beginning of this year.
And people keep coming. Joel Onini, the camp commander, says that many families
continue to arrive in the camp from other camps in Lira. They all come
barehanded and do not have money to buy household items. “Last December there
was a distribution of some items by the Red Cross,” he says.
During its third phase of the Northern Uganda Relief Operation (NURO) Echo III,
Uganda Red Cross distributed a variety of non-food items to several camps in
Kitgum and Pader districts, including the Odokomit camp. Onini reveals that
each household received a 30 litre saucepan, two small saucepans, five cups,
five plates and a jerry can, and blankets according to household size.
“Most people were using the old pots to get water and to cook. Getting these
pots involves going to the villages, which is insecure. It is now easier
because you can carry water in the big saucepan in one trip,” Onini says. But
many have nothing to cover their pots with.
Hillary Kupajo explains that the camp residents receive one and a half kilogram
of iodized salt every three months and three bars of washing soap per
household. With the use of soap and water, there has been a remarkable
improvement in the physical hygiene of the people and the number of skin
diseases has dropped.
Kupajo also says that a large number of the people that came to the new camps
are elderly who could not build their own houses. “We gave them tarpaulins to
use as roofs,” says Kupajo. Also among other relief items that Uganda Red Cross
delivered to the camps were second hand clothes donated by sympathizers across
the country and the Mama Bag Kit, intended to ensure safe delivery among
expectant women. Since the first launch of the Mama Bag Appeal in April 2004,
over 3,000 women have benefited from the contributions mainly coming from local
fundraising efforts. Under the URCS’s third phase of the European Commission
Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) funded programme, 800 expectant mothers
received kits.
Following the successful completion of the third phase, the Uganda Red Cross
embarked on the fourth phase the Northern Uganda Relief Operation, codenamed
Echo IV, which started in January and runs till December. Through the one-year
project, Ugandan Red Cross volunteers provide assistance to people living with
HIV/AIDS, as well as to increase malaria and hygiene awareness. Soap is
distributed to families, expectant mothers receive their ‘Mama Bag’ kits,
people tought how to avoid and deal with fires. In addition there is a campaign
to increase awareness of sexual violence, which often is rife in displacement
camps.
Stay in the forum for Series One hundred and ninety on the way ------>
EM
On the 49th Parallel
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika
machafuko"
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