KITGUM, Uganda, Friday – The United Nations on Wednesday warned of a “human rights crisis” in northern Uganda, where rebels have been fighting the government for two decades, and urged the region to help Kampala end the deadly insurgency there.

For the past 20 years, the hardened Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have terrorised civilians in the region, where they are blamed for forcing nearly two million people out of their homes, plus abducting children for combat and as sex slaves.

“Women and children have taken the brunt of it (the war) as is always the case. It is a human rights crisis because the rule of law does not apply in northern Uganda,” Dennis McNamara, the head of the UN Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division, told reporters at Padibe camp in Kitgum, about 400km north of Kampala.

“There is a need for a more regional approach to the problem. Northern Uganda is a major crisis to the UN because the figures there are 35 abductions a month and 15 killings a month by the LRA and we don’t know about the others. It is not a big war, but it is very nasty,” he said.

McNamara faulted the Uganda government for its failure to protect civilians from attacks, despite many pledges to do so.

In 2003, Ian Egeland, UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, lamented that the conflict was the worst forgotten humanitarian crisis on earth and pledged to beef up relief work, but displaced civilians say nothing much has happened.