      |
Humanitarian disaster continues in northern Uganda
Sarah worked in the therapeutic feeding centre (TFC) set up in Lira by MSF in February 2004, and in mobile clinics where insecurity is ever present. “We couldn’t leave Lira before 10am because it was too insecure. We’d arrive in a camp to find several hundred people queuing up. We’d set up in a makeshift clinic, quickly triage and treat as many people as possible for severe malaria, skin problems, diarrhoea, respiratory infections, burns and other injuries – a number of them related to the war,” says Sarah. Brutal attacks, carried out in countless villages have led to the displacement of much of the rural population in the districts of Kitgum, Gulu, Lira and Pader, as well as in the many camps set up by the government to shelter them. In 2003, the crisis escalated, bringing the war to Lira and Teso – regions previously unaffected by the violence. More than one and half million people have been forced to flee. “Villagers were leaving their rural areas to go to town centres where there is little or no infrastructure since all the health care officials have left because of the insecurity,” recalls Sarah.
“When the rebels recruit these kids they make them commit atrocities, including killing family members. Kids are supposed to be at school; instead they’re in a rebel movement they don’t believe in.” Sarah still remembers some of these children, especially one girl. “She must have been about thirteen – a really beautiful child – who’d been abducted by the rebels and had spent several years in the bush – probably forced into being a wife. She escaped and found her own way to the camp and somehow managed to find her parents. It was a real miracle. She had malaria and was malnourished, but we were able to refer her for counselling where she was able to talk about her experiences,” said Sarah. The government’s response to the violence has been sluggish. In Lira District, approximately 210,000 civilians are living in one of 24 camps, the majority of whom have been living in these camps since late 2003 “There are a couple of other agencies in Lira, but the lack of response from the international community is just shocking,” says Sarah. There are chronic food shortages because people are not able to farm and World Food Program (WFP) food distributions hover around 50 per cent of daily requirements. “At the beginning of the year people living in Lira urban centre were forced to move back to the rural camps because the rations were stopped all together,” says Sarah, “but it’s not until you leave Lira and go out into the rural areas and into the camps that you see there is a problem.” Overcrowded and unprotected, the camps have proven to be death traps.
In October 2004, Sarah also played a leading role a baseline survey conducted by the medical aid agency in six camps in northern Uganda. The survey looked at health, mortality, morbidity, security, food security and nutrition. The survey found a crude mortality rate (CMR) of 2.8 deaths per 10,000 people per day for the general population; while the mortality rate for the under 5 population was even more alarming, at 5.4/10,000/day across sites. When you consider that the WHO determines that an emergency is occurring when the CMR reaches just one death per 10,000 people per day; then this population was already living in a crisis situation well beyond the normal emergency levels. This fact also demonstrates the inadequate response from the Ugandan government and the international community considering that these people have been displaced in Lira for more than 18 months now. “This was an unacceptable situation in November last year and it’s an unacceptable situation now,” said Sarah. Despite this, MSF has made a significant difference to the people of northern
Uganda. MSF has worked in Uganda since 1982 and currently has 50 international and 277 national staff working in the country. The humanitarian crisis in Northern Uganda was nominated in MSF’s Top Ten Underreported Humanitarian Emergencies for 2004. » Read about other featured projects
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
