UN emergency chief meets Uganda’s President; displaced people key issue

United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland today met with Uganda’s President and other top officials in wide-ranging talks that covered the need to improve the conditions in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) uprooted in the 20-year rebellion by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Mr. Egeland, who arrived in Uganda yesterday on the first stop of a four-country mission to Africa, also discussed with President Yoweri Museveni the need to do more to protect civilians, and also the idea of a Special Envoy for Northern Uganda, according to a news release from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The discussions also considered the possibility that a UN agency could support the Government’s efforts to promote national reconciliation and, in that vein, agreed to consult with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, OCHA said.

“They also discussed the establishment of a joint health task force to review the health situation in the camps and ways to make health interventions more effective, including through empowering and working with district authorities. Finally, they discussed the demilitarization of the police and justice system.”

During a subsequent meeting with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in northern Uganda, Mr. Egeland paid tribute to their work in creating the momentum for change, highlighting several positive developments in northern Uganda while stressing the need to see actual results on the ground.

"We cannot just create structures. We have to focus on results to prove that we're making progress," he stated, citing decreased mortality and increased numbers of returns as key examples of actual progress. Mr. Egeland is scheduled to travel to northern Uganda to get a firsthand view of the situation.

After Uganda, he will then travel to Juba in southern Sudan for more consultations with officials and another visit to an IDP way station before heading to the conflict-ridden Darfur region of that country.

Conflict between Government forces, pro-government militias and rebels has led to the deaths of at least 180,000 people and uprooted more than 2 million others in Darfur over the past three years, and from here Mr. Egeland will visit a Sudanese refugee camp in eastern Chad that houses some of those who have fled.

He will then return to Sudan for meetings in the capital, Khartoum, with Government and UN officials, including those from the UN Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS).

On the final day of the mission on 7 April, Mr. Egeland will travel to Nairobi, Kenya, where severe drought has affected 3.5 million people.