Northern Uganda: Lack of shelter
Aug 29, 2006
THE excited young driver of the Carib taxi presses his foot on the accelerator and smiles: “We will be there in 30 minutes; I make four trips everyday on this road.â€<br>As recent as last year, the 20-mile fairly good murrum road from Lira town to Aloi in the eastern part of the district was alm
By Denis Ocwich
THE excited young driver of the Carib taxi presses his foot on the accelerator and smiles: “We will be there in 30 minutes; I make four trips everyday on this road.â€
As recent as last year, the 20-mile fairly good murrum road from Lira town to Aloi in the eastern part of the district was almost deserted. You wouldn’t be sure of making it without being hit by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel bullets. The roadside bushes had swallowed up much of the road.
But now life is quickly getting back to normal. There is busy traffic on the road consisting of villagers going to the market, residents trekking or riding bicycles between the internally displaced people’s (IDP) camps, their villages and the gardens plus vehicles belonging to NGOs.
All the way from Lira to Aloi camp, the once abandoned fields are being reclaimed by villagers. Recent rains have made the vegetation admirably green and beans, sunflower, vegetables, sorghum, cotton and simsim are blossoming in the fertile gardens.
Tired-looking, but physically-fit, people including women with babies strapped on their backs and hoes in their hands, as well as men with hoes on their bicycle carriers arrive at the camp. They have been busy in the gardens since dawn.
The busy Thursday market in Aloi camp, the piped water lines being dug up, healthy-looking kids and the busy traders, are visible symbols of the return of peace. Traders buy produce like maize, beans, millet, sorghum and simsim from the camp.
“Almost a half of the camp population (56,053) has returned to their villages.
Others are still living in the camp because they don’t have where to sleep in their former homes,†says Salim Oryem, the camp leader of Aloi, the biggest IDP camp in Lira. “Some people just go to dig and come back to sleep in the camp.â€
A walk through the camp reveals a sparse population. Many of the small mud and wattle huts have either collapsed or been swallowed up by weeds after the owners left. The IDPs started going home in May when the security started improving.
“Soon, I will have my own food, instead of waiting for handouts,†says Hellen Amuge, a 33-year-old mother of five. Amuge’s home, comprising three grass-thatched huts in River Kali village, Anyaa parish, is less than two kilometers from Aloi IDP camp.
“We are just beginning to repair our old houses and reclaiming our farmland,†she narrates as she uses a hand hoe to weed her field of beans intercropped with sunflower. “I returned home last month (July), but there is nothing in the house; no bedding, no cooking pans and no clothes for the children.â€
For Micaleci Angom, an old woman in her 80s, the biggest obstacle to her plans of going back to her home in Oloo village is lack of shelter. She has lived in the camp for three years and her her hut was destroyed by termites. “I want to go back home and start digging. But there is nobody to build for me a house,†laments Angom who lives with her grandchild.
“People want to go home but they have nowhere to sleep. Some of those who have gone back are sleeping under trees, while others live in roofless old huts. This has forced some people to keep around the camp,†Oryem said.
Other people are simply not sure that the good atmosphere will continue, so they don’t want to demolish their huts in the camps.
“I hope to leave the camp in October, but that will depend on how the wind of peace blows,†says 22-year-old Alex Opio, a boda-boda cyclists in the camp. He was displaced from Awapiny village, Acede parish in Abako.
“I am sure the LRA are no longer strong. But we can’t take things for granted,†says Opio, who in 2003 was abducted and held by the rebels for eight months before he escaped.
To prepare the ground for his return home, Opio has already planted beans and other crops in his village garden. He, like other IDPs, has also harvested some maize and millets.
If the good weather continues, with enough rainfall, the IDPs will begin to reap good harvests later this year. However, many of them are in dire need of farm tools and seeds. “We appeal to the government to give us three things; seeds, hoes and peace. That is what we want to settle down,†urges Richard Opio, 64 a resident of Abedober in Alebtong parish.
The World Food Programme (WFP) and other humanitarian agencies, like the German Agro Action, are now looking at provision of farm tools and seeds as the right path to resettling the IDPs. They have started distributing hoes, pangas, axes and seeds.
Samuel Akera, the acting Officer in charge of Lira WFP office says the UN food agency resettled 35,000 people last year; and another 35,000 were resettled in May this year. “This month we hope to resettle a similar number,†he says.
Those returning home are given a WFP food ration for three months. This is estimated to sustain them as they wait to harvest the crops they have planted.
After three months, WFP makes follow-up visits to households to ascertain their food security. “Usually, most of the people who have returned home no longer need food aid by this time,†Akera says.
In March 2006, Lira District Disaster Preparedness Co-coordinator, with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and an inter-agency team, conducted assessments of the scale of movement from IDP camps at Obim Rock, Abako, Alanyi, Barr and Amugo.
“We found that in Obim Rock, Abako and Alanyi, approximately 70% – 75% of the displaced people had returned or were in the process of returning to their homes,†says an August 15 report by the UNHCR.
In Alanyi, the assessment team was told that there were between 100 and 250 people in the camp by mid this month.
“This has gone down from the 11,000 people said to be in the camp at the time of the WFP revalidation in May 2005,†says the UNHCR report. In Abako camp, there were 300 people, down from the 12,500 assessed by the WFP in May 2005. The UNHCR report recommends that food aid is no longer needed in the camps. It calls for de-gazetting of the camps, but said “some limited assistance, food and/or non-food, may be required for people whose homes are where the IDP camps were situated, and who are struggling to restore the land for cultivation.â€
The WFP has been feeding over 350,000 IDPs in the district. It is hoped all IDPs will have quit the camps and resumed normal life by next year.
“I think by October people will be harvesting a lot of food, and there won’t be any hunger,†says Oryem, the Aloi camp leader.
Akera, however, cautions that there might still be food insecurity. “For people to recover up to the original life that they were living before displacement, it will take five or more years,†he says.
THE excited young driver of the Carib taxi presses his foot on the accelerator and smiles: “We will be there in 30 minutes; I make four trips everyday on this road.â€
As recent as last year, the 20-mile fairly good murrum road from Lira town to Aloi in the eastern part of the district was almost deserted. You wouldn’t be sure of making it without being hit by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel bullets. The roadside bushes had swallowed up much of the road.
But now life is quickly getting back to normal. There is busy traffic on the road consisting of villagers going to the market, residents trekking or riding bicycles between the internally displaced people’s (IDP) camps, their villages and the gardens plus vehicles belonging to NGOs.
All the way from Lira to Aloi camp, the once abandoned fields are being reclaimed by villagers. Recent rains have made the vegetation admirably green and beans, sunflower, vegetables, sorghum, cotton and simsim are blossoming in the fertile gardens.
Tired-looking, but physically-fit, people including women with babies strapped on their backs and hoes in their hands, as well as men with hoes on their bicycle carriers arrive at the camp. They have been busy in the gardens since dawn.
The busy Thursday market in Aloi camp, the piped water lines being dug up, healthy-looking kids and the busy traders, are visible symbols of the return of peace. Traders buy produce like maize, beans, millet, sorghum and simsim from the camp.
“Almost a half of the camp population (56,053) has returned to their villages.
Others are still living in the camp because they don’t have where to sleep in their former homes,†says Salim Oryem, the camp leader of Aloi, the biggest IDP camp in Lira. “Some people just go to dig and come back to sleep in the camp.â€
A walk through the camp reveals a sparse population. Many of the small mud and wattle huts have either collapsed or been swallowed up by weeds after the owners left. The IDPs started going home in May when the security started improving.
“Soon, I will have my own food, instead of waiting for handouts,†says Hellen Amuge, a 33-year-old mother of five. Amuge’s home, comprising three grass-thatched huts in River Kali village, Anyaa parish, is less than two kilometers from Aloi IDP camp.
“We are just beginning to repair our old houses and reclaiming our farmland,†she narrates as she uses a hand hoe to weed her field of beans intercropped with sunflower. “I returned home last month (July), but there is nothing in the house; no bedding, no cooking pans and no clothes for the children.â€
For Micaleci Angom, an old woman in her 80s, the biggest obstacle to her plans of going back to her home in Oloo village is lack of shelter. She has lived in the camp for three years and her her hut was destroyed by termites. “I want to go back home and start digging. But there is nobody to build for me a house,†laments Angom who lives with her grandchild.
“People want to go home but they have nowhere to sleep. Some of those who have gone back are sleeping under trees, while others live in roofless old huts. This has forced some people to keep around the camp,†Oryem said.
Other people are simply not sure that the good atmosphere will continue, so they don’t want to demolish their huts in the camps.
“I hope to leave the camp in October, but that will depend on how the wind of peace blows,†says 22-year-old Alex Opio, a boda-boda cyclists in the camp. He was displaced from Awapiny village, Acede parish in Abako.
“I am sure the LRA are no longer strong. But we can’t take things for granted,†says Opio, who in 2003 was abducted and held by the rebels for eight months before he escaped.
To prepare the ground for his return home, Opio has already planted beans and other crops in his village garden. He, like other IDPs, has also harvested some maize and millets.
If the good weather continues, with enough rainfall, the IDPs will begin to reap good harvests later this year. However, many of them are in dire need of farm tools and seeds. “We appeal to the government to give us three things; seeds, hoes and peace. That is what we want to settle down,†urges Richard Opio, 64 a resident of Abedober in Alebtong parish.
The World Food Programme (WFP) and other humanitarian agencies, like the German Agro Action, are now looking at provision of farm tools and seeds as the right path to resettling the IDPs. They have started distributing hoes, pangas, axes and seeds.
Samuel Akera, the acting Officer in charge of Lira WFP office says the UN food agency resettled 35,000 people last year; and another 35,000 were resettled in May this year. “This month we hope to resettle a similar number,†he says.
Those returning home are given a WFP food ration for three months. This is estimated to sustain them as they wait to harvest the crops they have planted.
After three months, WFP makes follow-up visits to households to ascertain their food security. “Usually, most of the people who have returned home no longer need food aid by this time,†Akera says.
In March 2006, Lira District Disaster Preparedness Co-coordinator, with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and an inter-agency team, conducted assessments of the scale of movement from IDP camps at Obim Rock, Abako, Alanyi, Barr and Amugo.
“We found that in Obim Rock, Abako and Alanyi, approximately 70% – 75% of the displaced people had returned or were in the process of returning to their homes,†says an August 15 report by the UNHCR.
In Alanyi, the assessment team was told that there were between 100 and 250 people in the camp by mid this month.
“This has gone down from the 11,000 people said to be in the camp at the time of the WFP revalidation in May 2005,†says the UNHCR report. In Abako camp, there were 300 people, down from the 12,500 assessed by the WFP in May 2005. The UNHCR report recommends that food aid is no longer needed in the camps. It calls for de-gazetting of the camps, but said “some limited assistance, food and/or non-food, may be required for people whose homes are where the IDP camps were situated, and who are struggling to restore the land for cultivation.â€
The WFP has been feeding over 350,000 IDPs in the district. It is hoped all IDPs will have quit the camps and resumed normal life by next year.
“I think by October people will be harvesting a lot of food, and there won’t be any hunger,†says Oryem, the Aloi camp leader.
Akera, however, cautions that there might still be food insecurity. “For people to recover up to the original life that they were living before displacement, it will take five or more years,†he says.