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Summary: The worst place in the world to be a child today is northern Uganda, the former UN representative for children in war said, blaming rebels and government forces for trapping an entire population in a nightmare of terror, disease and death.
[LONDON, 18 JAnuary 2006] - The worst place in the world to be a child today is northern Uganda, the former UN representative for children in war said, blaming rebels and government forces for trapping an entire population in a nightmare of terror, disease and death. Rebels have kidnapped more than 20,000 children for use as soldiers, sex slaves and porters while the government is keeping hundreds of thousands of others in squalid camps where disease and violence are rampant. âWhen adults wage war children pay the highest price,â Olara Otunnu said in a speech in London. âChildren are the primary victims of armed conflict.â Almost 2 million people have been âherded like animalsâ into the camps in northern Uganda where 1,000 people are dying a week due to disease and violence, Otunnu said. He added that rape by government troops, many of them HIV positive, was common. The government says the camps were set up a decade ago to protect local people from attacks and abductions by the Lordâs Resistance Army (LRA), whose 19-year insurgency has taken a horrific toll on northern Ugandaâs Acholi population. Otunnu, who comes from northern Uganda, accused President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, of forcing the Acholi people into the camps in a deliberate campaign to wipe them out. The government strongly denied this. âAn entire society is being destroyed in full view of the international community,â Otunnu said, calling on Western leaders to demand the Ugandan government dismantle the camps and send in international monitors. Otunnu said there were 200 camps. The government said there were 100. Ugandan Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Oryem Henry Okello dismissed Otunnuâs claims, saying people had gone to the camps to escape LRA atrocities. âItâs absolutely true that the situation in northern Uganda is appalling,â said Okello, himself an Acholi and a lawmaker for the northern Kitgum district. âWhat is not true is that thereâs (a) genocidal project ... to destroy the Acholi people.â âWORSE THAN DARFURâ Otunnu, who was UN Under Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 1997 to 2005, said the situation in northern Uganda was far worse than in Sudanâs troubled Darfur region. In Darfur, tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million forced from their homes since 2003. âThe UN said recently that the death rate in northern Uganda is twice that of Darfur,â he said. âNorthern Uganda has the worst infant mortality in the world today. âThe situation in northern Uganda is far worse than in Darfur in its duration, its scope, its magnitude and the impact on the society being destroyed.â Malnutrition means 41 per cent of children in the camps have seriously stunted growth and two generations have been deprived of education, he said. The HIV infection rate in the north, which was once negligible, has rocketed to 30-50 per cent compared with a national average of around 5 per cent, he added. Aid workers say the war between the government and cult-like LRA, notorious for slicing off peopleâs noses and padlocking their lips, is one of the worldâs most neglected crises. Otunnu cited a study by the Ugandan Health Ministry, UN agencies and the International Rescue Committee that estimated nearly 26,000 people had died in the camps in the first half of 2005 due to the effects of the conflict. Of these more than 10,000 were children. He also highlighted the plight of thousands of rural ânight commuterâ children who have to walk miles every evening to find shelter in the relative safety of towns for fear of abduction by the LRA. âThe worst situation in the world today to be a child (is) the northern part of the Republic of Uganda,â said Otunnu, who has set up the New York based LBL Foundation for Children to help young victims of war.