UNICEF chief urges aid to children threatened by kidnapping in north Uganda
The head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today called for urgent action to alleviate the plight of a million children affected by conflict in northern Uganda, tens of thousands of whom are sent away from their homes every night to avoid kidnapping by rebels.
The head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) today called for urgent action to alleviate the plight of a million children affected by conflict in northern Uganda, tens of thousands of whom are sent away from their homes every night to avoid kidnapping by rebels.
Some 44,000 Ugandan children have been dubbed "night commuters" because they seek refuge each evening in northern towns to avoid kidnapping by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
Speaking in the capital Kampala at the end of her four-day visit, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy praised Uganda for its efforts to promote gender parity in education and to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. But she warned that the ongoing conflict in the north threatens to undermine the country's achievements.
"On the one hand, I see the tremendous progress that has taken place," Ms. Bellamy said. "But on the other, I will be troubled by my memory of mothers in the north who love their children so much that they send them away from their own homes every night to seek safety and the protection that they are powerless to offer."
The number of Ugandans displaced by the nearly 20-year war between the Government and the LRA has tripled to 1.6 million people, 80 per cent of them children and women. Meanwhile, HIV/AIDS is spreading at an alarming rate, basic literacy is in decline and in the district of Gulu, less than 20 per cent of the people have access to adequate healthcare.
UNICEF helps feed 700 children every month, but insecurity prevents the agency and its partners from reaching all of those in need. An estimated 7,000 children in the area suffer from the most severe and deadly form of malnutrition.
"These figures, and these images, show that Uganda is home to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today," Ms. Bellamy observed. "And I say that quite conscious of the great humanitarian crises that lie to the north in Sudan."
While pledging UNICEF's commitment to alleviating the suffering of Uganda's children, she called on the country's Government and the international community to act to tackle the crisis in the north.