Humanitarian operations in south Sudan and northern Uganda are being jeopardised by attacks on aid workers. Last week a consortium of 50 agencies appealed to the UN Security Council for protection after a series of murders by Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)—a shadowy group of northern Ugandan rebels led by the charismatic Joseph Kony and whose numbers largely consist of abducted children.
On 26 October two local aid workers working for international organisations were killed in northern Uganda. On 31 October two aid workers who were employed to remove landmines were ambushed and killed in southern Sudan. On 5 November a British aid worker was killed while driving from Uganda to the Sudanese town of Yei. The next day a former British diplomat was murdered in Uganda's Murchison Falls National Park while attempting to rescue a group of stranded tourists.
“This is a tragedy for those who have been killed, for their families, and [for] their organisations. It is unconscionable that the LRA is carrying out these vicious attacks on unarmed humanitarian workers,” said Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator.
The consortium said: “Almost 20 years of war in northern Uganda have seen nearly two million people driven from their homes and over 25 000 children kidnapped and forced to fight for the rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army. Yet the UN Security Council has never passed a resolution on northern Uganda.”
The recent spate of attacks on foreigners, believed to be retaliation for the International Criminal Court's indictment of the rebel group's leadership last month, has now brought the problem to wider attention.
Emma Naylor, Oxfam's country programme manager for Uganda, said: “This is the world's worst case of mass child abuse. Every week, 20 children are kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to fight. If it was happening in Europe the Security Council would have acted years ago. Instead, the 20 year silence of the Security Council has condemned thousands to death.”
A recent report on internally displaced people in northern Uganda showed that:
Nearly 30 000 people were killed as a result of disease and conflict in northern Uganda between January and July 2005, of whom 11 068 were children aged under 5
During this period nearly 4000 civilians died as a result of violence, an average of 20 violent deaths every day
Fewer people died as a result of direct violence than from “diseases described as war induced, to the extent that conflict has prevented treatment and aid”
About 1200 people, almost half of whom were children, were abducted by the LRA in this period.
Save the Children said: “The UN Security Council must take firm action and challenge the Ugandan government to protect its own people. If the government cannot do this then the Security Council must agree to a resolution which commits the international community to protecting the millions suffering in sub-Saharan Africa's longest running war.”
Health and Mortality Survey among Internally Displaced Persons in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader Districts, Northern Uganda is at www.who.int/hac/crises/uga/sitreps/Ugandamortsurvey.pdf.
