HEAD OF UN HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS OFFICE VISITS NORTHERN UGANDA, SAYS ‘DEEPLY SHOCKED’ BY ‘WAR AGAINST CHILDREN’

HEAD OF UN HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS OFFICE VISITS NORTHERN UGANDA,

SAYS ‘DEEPLY SHOCKED’ BY ‘WAR AGAINST CHILDREN’

NEW YORK, 10 November (OCHA) -- Over the weekend, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, visited Kitgum and Gulu districts in northern Uganda.  In Kitgum, Mr. Egeland visited camps for internally displaced persons.  He also visited some of the thousands of “night commuters”, children who leave their homes at night to seek safety in the town.  In and around the general district hospital in Kitgum, 4,000 to 5,000 children camp each night.  In the past year, an estimated 10,000 children in northern Uganda have been abducted.  Those who have not been abducted face serious disruption to their lives, including their education, due to the need to “commute” every night.

“I am deeply shocked by what I have seen”, Mr. Egeland said.  “This is above all a war against children.  They are abducted, abused and violated.”

Northern Uganda is home to almost 1.2 million people displaced by fighting between the Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).  Numbers of displaced have risen in the last year from 800,000 to the current 1.2 million.  Almost all aid workers gain access to the displaced only by using military escorts.  The lack of sustained presence has made it impossible to establish sustainable assistance for health, education or other basic services. 

In his visit to Uganda, the Under-Secretary-General focused on improving humanitarian access, increasing the supply and the coordination of aid, and clarifying security arrangements with the Uganda People’s Defence Forces.  The United Nations is planning to scale up aid activities in Northern Uganda, and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) will increase its coordination efforts there. 

Calling poor security the greatest constraint on aid, Mr. Egeland called for guarantees of safe passage for aid workers.  During his visit, Mr. Egeland met with traditional and religious leaders in Gulu, who appealed for his support for a peaceful resolution of the conflict

“Northern Uganda is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.  This situation cannot be allowed to continue for another 17 years”, Mr. Egeland said.

Now in Nairobi, Mr. Egeland will meet OCHA staff, and will hold discussions with the Special Representative of the Secretary General, Ibrahima Fall, on the subject of an international conference on peace, development and security in the Great lakes region, scheduled for 2004.  On 12 November, the Under-Secretary-General will depart for Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and on 13 November, will travel to eastern regions of that country. 

For further information, please call:  Stephanie Bunker, OCHA NY, tel:  917 367 5126, mobile:  917 892 1679; or Elisabeth Byrs, OCHA Geneva, tel:  41 22 917 26 53, mobile:  41 (O) 79 473 45 70.

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