Refugees from Ugandan war say world has forgot them

LALOGI CAMP, Northern Uganda, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Natalia Lariang survives on handouts in one of scores of refugee camps dotted across northern Uganda, praying for an end to one of the world’s most brutal civil wars.

The mother of eight says outsiders have forgotten her and the other victims of an 18-year-old conflict that has driven at least 1.6 million people from their homes — many more than in neighbouring Sudan’s Darfur.

“Definitely they have forgotten us,” Lariang says as she queues for a meagre ration of United Nations beans, maize and cooking oil at Lalogi camp in Gulu district, epicentre of a bloodsoaked insurgency by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.

“If they knew, they wouldn’t have left us to suffer like this,” she says, shaking her head.

Uganda’s government reacts angrily to comparisons of the plight of the north with Darfur, and says security is rapidly returning thanks to increased military spending, which has now whittled the LRA down to small bands of fugitives.

But camp residents remain fearful after the army said last month that it had forced Joseph Kony, the cult-like group’s dreadlocked leader, to flee into Gulu from mountain hideouts in lawless southern Sudan.

Leaning on a stick at the camp, an elderly man says the refugees often hear gunfire rattling around their impoverished settlement, meaning the conflict is closer.

“We live in fear most of the time, especially now we’ve been told Kony is back from Sudan. “We pray the government sends more troops to protect us,” he appeals.

Infamous for kidnapping and forcibly recruiting tens of thousands of children, massacring villagers and mutilating their victims, his fighters move swiftly on foot through the region’s dense forests and rolling grasslands.

Lalogi’s 19,000 residents sit in their tightly packed huts and hope the self-proclaimed prophet isn’t marching back to his home village, less than ten miles away in Odek sub-county.

PROTECTION ENOUGH?

Despite recent military victories, Uganda’s government says it is not yet safe for them to go home. Nine rebels were shot dead by helicopter gunship crews earlier this month near the camp, and residents say troops from the 200-strong unit assigned to defend them sometimes die in rebel ambushes.

“They are not enough,” Lariang says, as soldiers in camouflage and rubber boots ride past on an armoured car, throwing up a thick cloud of yellow dust.

“They fight with the LRA and the LRA kill our soldiers. You cannot compete with people who live in the bush and know how to hide.”

At least 90 percent of northern Uganda’s population is crammed into squalid refugee camps like Lalogi. Aid workers say about half fled there voluntarily, and half were ordered to abandon their homes by the army.

This month, U.N. aid chief Jan Egeland said it was a “moral outrage” that as many as two million people were suffering under such “sub-human” conditions.

The main threat for camp residents is starvation. Few dare venture more than a mile or two into the bush to plant crops for fear of being killed or maimed by the rebels.

After years of war, groups of women in one of Uganda’s most fertile regions are reduced to begging and cheering the arrival of heavily-guarded World Food Programme (WFP) trucks.

DESPERATION HIGH

With no jobs, the misery of life for many men in the camps is only relieved only by alcohol abuse and promiscuity.

Child prostitution is rife and health workers say HIV/AIDS infection rates of around 12 percent in the north are double those in the rest of Uganda.

“Immorality is very high. These people in the camps have already given up on life,” says one local NGO worker.

Uganda’s government and army say they are confident the war will end soon, but that offers little hope for camp residents who have lost everything.

One report by a Ugandan parliamentary committee said it might take 30 years to rehabilitate the region.

In Teso district, 100 miles southeast of Gulu, some villagers have slowly started moving back to their homes. But few have much to look forward to.

Lariang has not seen her house in seven years. Until it is safe to leave Lalogi, she has little to offer the children.

“At least when we could get to our gardens, I could sell some food for school fees,” she tells Reuters. “I don’t have a husband, and I can’t look after all of them alone. I’m afraid they will just grow up to become thieves.”

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