Darfur overshadows "forgotten" crisis in neighbouring Uganda.

Abstract

As world attention has focused on the unfolding tragedy in Sudan's Darfur region in recent months, the international humanitarian community has been struggling to mobilize enough resources to help the victims of a largely ignored conflict in neighbouring Uganda that has raged for 18 years. There are more than 1.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Uganda's north and east--80% of them women and children--as a result of fighting between government forces and rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), humanitarian agencies say. Led by cult-like leader Joseph Kony who claims he wants to create a government in Uganda based on the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament, the LRA has abducted 12 000 children in the past two years to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves, humanitarian agencies say. Despite an improvement in the security situation in recent weeks, the terror sown by the kidnappings and brutal night raids remains undiminished. To escape those raids, as many as 44 000 children leave their home villages every dusk to sleep in empty buildings and doorways in Uganda's urban centres. Dr David Nabarro, head of WHO's Health Action in Crisis unit, described the health situation in Northern Uganda as "dramatic". "Disruption in regular immunization, shortage of drugs, lack of skilled medical staff and basic medical equipment, and seriously inadequate water supplies and sanitation facilities are jeopardizing the health of a population already made vulnerable by displacement and insecurity," Nabarro said. As of mid-October, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which coordinates United Nations and other groups providing aid, reported a US$ 47.3 million shortfall towards the 2004 consolidated appeal of US$ 127.9 million for what it described as the "world's biggest forgotten emergency." The World Food Programme said it had only received 64% of the US$ 92.5 million it says is needed to feed the displaced, The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) issued an urgent appeal at the end of September for an additional US$ 7.8 million, saying that lack of funding jeopardized the provision of life-saving interventions such as therapeutic feeding and supplies of emergency medicines to 300 000 children. WHO assessments in IDP camps in the districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Katakwi, Kaberamaido, Lira and Soroti revealed malnutrition, diarrhoea, malaria, conflict-related injury, HIV/AIDS, reproductive ill-health, and outbreaks of communicable diseases to be the most pressing health concerns. …