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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
UGANDA: Daunting post-conflict challenges in the north
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
KAMPALA, 31 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - Resettling internally displaced persons (IDPs) and re-establishing civil services in war-ravaged northern Uganda will be a daunting task for the government, the country's minister for disaster preparedness has said.
"Post-conflict challenges are going to be heavier than the war itself," Minister Francis Musa Ecweru told IRIN.
Amid optimism that the protracted conflict in the northern districts could soon end, the government has prepared an emergency action plan intended to facilitate the return of IDPs to their villages to resume their lives as farmers, the minister said.
The resettlement plan involves shifting people from large, congested camps into smaller ones closer to their villages before they are eventually able to go back to their original homes, and helping those who have already returned to their pre-war homesteads.
In July, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) expressed concern that most of the new transit settlements in the Acholi region lacked water and sanitation. "Most camps do not have covered latrines due to lack of tools although specific areas have been designated for their location," OCHA said in its humanitarian update on population movements in the war-affected Acholi, Lango and Teso regions.
To make clean water available to returning IDPs, the government, with assistance from donors, planned to rehabilitate boreholes and sink new ones. The government of Germany had already donated 6.5 billion Ugandan shillings (US $3.5 million) for the water project, according to Ecweru.
"While people were suffering in the camps, the humanitarian groups and the government were able to give them at least safe water. Going home should not be like punishment; pushing them to drink from unprotected wells, swamp water and valley water is not the intention of government," said the minister.
The war in northern Uganda pitted Ugandan government troops against the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, widely accused of abducting thousands of children and forcing them to become soldiers. Girl captives were forced to become sex slaves for male rebel fighters.
Talks to end the war started in the southern Sudanese capital, Juba, on 14 July and have resulted in a cessation of hostilities agreement that took effect on Tuesday.
NGOs say one of the challenges of the post-war rehabilitation is going to be trying to heal the physical and psychological wounds of children who were kidnapped, raped, beaten and forced to commit atrocities in a war whose motive they hardly understood.
"Some of the children coming out of the bush face stigmatisation; they are accused of causing the [war] problems," Sam Kilara, World Vision's outreach coordinator in Gulu said. "Child mothers have been rejected by their parents, they are seen as burdens to their families," he added, calling for the allocation of more resources to support children affected by the war.
"The community has to be made to understand that these are their own children and they have to receive them in spite of all the problems they have endured," said Kilara, appealing for improved education opportunities for the youngsters. World Vision runs a reception centre in Gulu town for child abductees who were either rescued by government troops or escaped from rebel captivity.
Ecweru also emphasised the need to make psycho-social therapy more readily available to deal with trauma. "A traumatised population could be dangerous for the country in future - psycho-social interventions are crucial," he said.
According to the minister, the resettlement effort would also entail reviewing the security and protection arrangements.
"One of the things that must be handled is to phase out the military and replace them with the police so that we reintroduce the law, order and justice system in the whole place [northern Uganda]. The military and auxiliary groups [home guards] are being taken to areas where there are still some military operations, and the police must replace them so that civilian administration is reconstituted in these places.
"Another challenge is to open up the roads. Even what used to be called roads are all bush. So [we need to] open up the access roads so that people who have returned home can still be reached by humanitarian groups and government with services," said Ecweru.
The government also planned to provide returnees with iron roofing sheets, but the project is likely to prove too expensive. According to the minister, the people are asking for grass-cutting tools so that they can build their huts the traditional way - using grass thatch. The mud and straw huts have, however, been easy targets for marauding LRA fighters in their numerous village-torching sprees over the years.
"I have a memorandum from Teso region. They are telling me, 'bring us sickles and we want them in big quantities such that every woman must have one. The "mabati" [roofing sheets] will arrive when we are at least cultivating [our fields]'," according to Ecweru.
Resuscitation of health facilities was going to be a major challenge, according to Ecweru, who added that the high incidence of HIV/AIDS among IDPs and psycho-social problems related to the war required that medical services be made readily available when they settled far from established health centres close to their camp.
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[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006
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