Welcome to hell on earth: Hear the cries of northern Uganda
Observer Viewpoint
Issue date: 4/27/05 Section: Viewpoint
The people of northern Uganda have no place to rest their head. "Since 1986, we have only had restless nights," an old woman at Ader camp told me. "We are starving to death. Our children have been abducted, our daughters raped and our entire villages destroyed. We have no future. By the time you return, we will probably all be dead."
The woman is right. Over the last 18 years, the people of northern Uganda have died and are continuing to die amidst silence from the international community. Since 1986, the north of Uganda has been ravaged by a war that has left tens of thousands dead, over 25,000 children abducted and more than 1.6 million people now living in internally-displaced peoples (IDP) camps of the most squalor conditions.
Images speak louder than statistics - viciously malnourished children lying naked on the dirt with flies all over their bodies, tents made of plastic bags housing more than 10 people, elderly wasting away in their own feces, 12-year-old girls forced into prostitution for as little as 500 shillings (30 cents), a people living in constant destabilizing fear.
As I walked through these camps, I was horrified by these images and the stories that followed them. I wanted to cry and vomit. The situation in northern Uganda really is hell on earth. And no one is even doing anything about it.
In most of the camps I visited, there is no government or international presence to provide food and relief to these people. In some cases, the government has not even recognized that camps - with thousands and thousands of people - exist. As one man told me, "We are forgotten. The government has successfully hidden this war. We will die and no one will ever know what happened here."
This horror is the result of a vicious 18-year-old civil/proxy war that has pitted the government against the Lord's Resistance Army, an apocalyptic-spiritual insurgency seeking to overthrow the current regime. The LRA has waged war on the civilian population, while the government has simply contained the conflict, lacking any commitment or will to end the war.
The woman is right. Over the last 18 years, the people of northern Uganda have died and are continuing to die amidst silence from the international community. Since 1986, the north of Uganda has been ravaged by a war that has left tens of thousands dead, over 25,000 children abducted and more than 1.6 million people now living in internally-displaced peoples (IDP) camps of the most squalor conditions.
Images speak louder than statistics - viciously malnourished children lying naked on the dirt with flies all over their bodies, tents made of plastic bags housing more than 10 people, elderly wasting away in their own feces, 12-year-old girls forced into prostitution for as little as 500 shillings (30 cents), a people living in constant destabilizing fear.
As I walked through these camps, I was horrified by these images and the stories that followed them. I wanted to cry and vomit. The situation in northern Uganda really is hell on earth. And no one is even doing anything about it.
In most of the camps I visited, there is no government or international presence to provide food and relief to these people. In some cases, the government has not even recognized that camps - with thousands and thousands of people - exist. As one man told me, "We are forgotten. The government has successfully hidden this war. We will die and no one will ever know what happened here."
This horror is the result of a vicious 18-year-old civil/proxy war that has pitted the government against the Lord's Resistance Army, an apocalyptic-spiritual insurgency seeking to overthrow the current regime. The LRA has waged war on the civilian population, while the government has simply contained the conflict, lacking any commitment or will to end the war.