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Uganda: UN agency sends new team to help relocate survivors of refugee camp attack

Uganda: UN agency sends new team to help relocate survivors of refugee camp attack

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The United Nations refugee agency today announced that it was sending an emergency team to Uganda help relocate thousands of Sudanese asylum seekers dispersed by last week’s rebel attack on a camp in the northern part of the country.

The new staff will reinforce the team already in place and help handle the transfer of more than 20,000 survivors of an attack on the Acholi-Pii camp to a more permanent site at Kyangwali on Lake Albert, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in Geneva. More than 60 Sudanese refugees and many local villagers are now believed to have been massacred in the attack.

The transfer of refugees to Kyangwali is scheduled to start early next week and is expected to be completed within six days, spokesman Kris Janowski said. "The six-hour journey will include a stopover near Hoima, the district capital, where the refugees will receive food and water," he said. "The stopover site could also accommodate them overnight, should the trucks break down."

Meanwhile, preparations at Kyangwali are in full swing, the spokesman added. Four reception centres are being established and the emergency team is surveying land and identifying plots for shelter construction and agricultural production. Blankets and domestic items for up to 4,500 families have arrived in Uganda from the agency's regional stock in Tanzania and are now on their way to the campsite.