U.N. Steps Up Against Humanitarian Crisis in Uganda
The United Nations announced its plan to increase its presence and programs in northern Uganda next year to address the long-standing crisis involving the suffering of millions of people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of
The United Nations announced its plan to increase its presence and programs in northern Uganda next year to address the long-standing crisis involving the suffering of millions of people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Labeled as the longest ignored crisis in the world, the armed conflict in Uganda has kept tens of thousands of children on their feet in fear as try to protect themselves from being abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army. The civil war between the LRA and the Government of Uganda turned into one of the largest humanitarian crises when the LRA resorted to the violent abduction of children who have been forced to kill in its ranks.
"This is one of the longest, largest, and least addressed humanitarian crises in the world today," said Dennis McNamara, special advisor on displacement to the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, according to Reuters.
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McNamara called for "massive international pressure" to end the war.
According to U.N. estimates, the mortality rate among the nearly two million displaced people was measured to be double that of Sudan's Darfur and children are the primary victims in the conflict.
Every night, over 40,000 children walk as far as eight miles to take refuge and escape abduction and violent attacks by Ugandan rebels. These "night commuters," as local people call them, try to protect themselves from being used as sex slaves and weapons of terror against their own communities in the LRA forces.
World Vision, one of the largest Christian relief and development organizations in the world, is working with the local communities to help children who escape from the LRA rebuild their lives. Along with tending to their physical needs, World Vision's Center for Children of War in Gulu provides psychosocial counseling, education and vocational training.
"Rehabilitation, spiritual and psychological counseling and help are going to be absolutely vital, in addition to helping the displaced community and the unemployed community to find employment and to get themselves back on their feet. So they don't feel like they have to resort to violence to make ends meet," World Vision's Amy Parodi told Mission Network News.
In the past 10 years, World Vision's rehabilitation center has helped reintegrate nearly 11,000 children with the community, said Michael Oruni, manager for the local operating center.
Stepping up to more "serious action," as McNamara put it, the United Nations seeks increased funding of $220 million in 2006.
