A Tearfund assessment team is bound for war-torn northern Uganda this week, following a recent upsurge in fighting in one of Africa’s most brutal conflicts. The two-person team has been dispatched to the region at a time when the number of people displaced by 18 years of fighting has hit a record high.
The aim of the 10-day mission is to assess the current humanitarian situation in northern Uganda and to enable Tearfund’s partner in the region, The Pentecostal Assemblies of God, to scale up its work in meeting the needs of those forced to flee their homes by the fighting.
“Tearfund’s partners have been responding to the needs of people affected by the actions of the Lord’s Resistance Army in recent years, but the situation is deteriorating and much more needs to be done,” says Ian Wallace, Tearfund’s International Operations Director.
“The scale of this conflict remains largely hidden from the world’s eyes, but the suffering of ordinary people is in no way lessened because of the lack of media exposure,” adds Ian Wallace.
Eighteen years of brutal conflict between the Ugandan Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has driven an estimated 1.2 million people from their homes. Since 1986 the LRA has launched brutal attacks across northern Uganda supposedly in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Yoweri Museveni.
Since mid 2002 the LRA has significantly stepped up its attacks, venturing into new areas including Lira and Apac Districts, north east of Uganda’s capital Kampala. In mid 2003, the LRA intensified its activities once again with attacks spreading further south into neighbouring Kaberamaido and Soroti districts. Previously fighting had been largely restricted to four northern districts - Gulu, Kitgum Pader and Katakwi.
Those displaced by the conflict now live in squalid camp conditions, with poor access to safe water, basic sanitation and health services or are sleeping rough in towns. Insecurity severely hampers attempts by aid agencies to gain access to rural areas and improve conditions in the camps.
“We are particularly concerned about the plight of children in this conflict,” says Ian Wallace. “Children are affected more severely than in other conflicts because they are being targeted for kidnapping and used as soldiers.”
An estimated 20,000 children have been abducted by the LRA in the last five years to be trained as child soldiers. The fear of abduction hangs over tens of thousands of children every day, driving them from their villages every night for the relative ‘safety’ of major towns, returning home in the morning. The UN reports that these 'night commuters' sleep under verandas, in schools, in hospital courtyards and bus parking places.
"It is clear that much more needs to be done to provide immediate relief to those who have been displaced by the fighting, to care for those who have been traumatised by their experiences and to actively support those within civil society and the Ugandan Church who are pushing for a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” says Tearfund’s David Bainbridge, a member of the assessment mission.