Casualties of War

This is just killing me right now – I am approving a list of patients for medical treatment – they are all former child soldiers, or else children who were “born in captivity” – this means that their mothers were abducted and gave birth whilst child soldiers themselves. Reading this list of injuries, looking at the ages of the patients and wondering about their lives in order to have survived, but be living with these injuries. The suffering of the people of northern Uganda, and their continued perseverance with life and hope, in the face of a situation that would just cause me to crawl into a corner and give up hope, totally amazes me. I will give a couple of examples:

· An 18 year old boy paralysed in one arm due to gun shot
· A 20 year old boy paralysed from the waist down due to gun shot
· A 16 year old boy with his jaw blown off – artificial jaw
· Two 9 year old girls, born in captivity, one with HIV/AIDS and the other paralysed due to a bomb splinter in the brain
· A girl totally paralysed and wheelchair-bound due to bullet in the spine, has returned with two children born in captivity
· A 15 year old boy, totally blind because of backfire of a gun
· A 17 year old boy with a bullet lodged between his two lungs – inoperable

This is just an extract of this list, which is just a tiny, miniscule fraction of the number of war-wounded in northern Uganda – and these are just the physical wounds. Forget the fact that the entire region is traumatised and psychologically wounded. The mental trauma these kids have gone through is indescribable.

Think of some kids you know – imagine them living like this? For the rest of their lives. It is such evil. And now the LRA (the rebel army fighting the insurgency in northern Uganda) has turned its attention to Sudan and DRC – they are wreaking untold destruction in Congo right now – hundreds of killed and heavens knows how many children abducted.

At least some small piece of hope – we are bringing some of these kids down to Kampala to the main hospital here where, we hope, they will have some of their problems fixed. Such a tiny little drop in the ocean though…

So that’s my morning…how’s yours???

Northern Exposure

I have been meaning to post an update of the situation in northern Uganda for a while now, for people's information, but am just working so so so hard that I don't get much time for anything else. I'm not sure how much people know, but there was supposed to be a big signing of the Peace Agreement between the Government of Uganda (GoU) and the LRA in April this year in Juba (southern Sudan) that failed - Kony (LRA leader) never showed and it turned out that the LRA negotiator in the mediations had never actually met or spoken with Kony, and was not speaking for him, as he had claimed.

Although there has been no resumption of open conflict in the north following this, small skirmishes have been reported, as have isolated LRA sightings. Additionally, it has had a profound impact upon the IDP (Internally Displaced People - most people in the north fit into this category - IDPs are refugees who have not crossed an international border - they are displaced within their own country - like the Sudanese living in camps in Darfur). People are more fearful - there has been a slow but steady transition of people from the large mother camps to smaller resettlement/return camps which still offer the safety of an army presence, but are closer to original homestead and thus allow some access to their land to farm. These movements are creating a whole new situation on the ground (which is a whole different posting topic!) but people are now reluctant to move from the return camps all the way home, and those that have gone home, or are at the return camps are constantly prepared to flee back to the mother camps. I have noticed slightly more (not much, but a bit) troop movement in the north in the past few months. Another tragic thing is the impact this development has on the psychological recovery of former child soldiers - they are now more fearful with a potential return to conflict - those that have escaped the LRA are at greater danger or reprisal from the rebels.

Anyway - the Secretary General of the UN released a report on Children in Armed Conflict in Uganda - I thought I would post an excerpt here so you can read. Long story short: it aint over yet - all the abducted children are out of reach in Sudan and Congo and they're not being released. We still need your thoughts/hopes/efforts/prayers:


25 June 2008 – Although the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) does not seem to be recruiting children in Uganda, women and children are still present in its ranks, and the rebel group is allegedly enlisting young people from neighbouring countries, according to a United Nations report released today.


The LRA, which has fought a civil war with the Ugandan Government since the mid-1980s, became notorious during the conflict for abducting as many as 25,000 children and using them as fighters and porters. The children were often subject to extreme violence shortly after abduction, with many girls allocated to officers in a form of institutional rape.


“Owing to the apparent absence of LRA from Ugandan territory, there have been no recent cases of recruitment and use of Ugandan children, or other grave violations against children attributable to LRA,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes in a new report to the Security Council.

“However, children and women are still present in the LRA ranks, and there has been no movement on their release,” he adds.

In addition, he notes there are reports alleging that the group has been recruiting children
from southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR).


In one case, three boys from the Sudan and the CAR who escaped from the LRA reported that they had been forced to work for the group as porters. They also reported that girls were present in the ranks, and that they were regularly subjected to gender-based violence, including rape.

On 23 April, authorities in Dungu in eastern DRC reported that 13 people, including four students, were abducted from a primary school following LRA attacks.


“These allegations are being reported while the peace talks between LRA and the Government of Uganda are stalled, notably because of the refusal by the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, to sign the final peace agreement,” Mr. Ban writes.


Last July the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict called on the LRA to unconditionally release children used in their ranks, and underlined the absence of any concrete signs in this regard.


The Group also noted the International Criminal Court indictments against five senior members of the LRA – the leader Joseph Kony, and the commanders Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen and Raska Lukwiya – on a number of charges, including the enlistment of children through abduction.

The rebel group has maintained that it had released all children and women abducted or
forcibly conscripted some time ago and that those who remained in the bush were women and children related to LRA members.
Mr. Ban says that this information cannot be independently verified because of the absence of any direct contacts between the UN and the LRA leadership.

The Secretary-General urges the LRA to provide a complete list of names and ages of the women and children remaining in its ranks for verification and to carry out their immediate release.

In addition, he says the UN Task Forces on Monitoring and Reporting in Uganda, the CAR, the DRC and the Sudan, in cooperation with the UN missions in the DRC and Sudan, should develop a strategy to increase monitoring and reporting on cross-border recruitment and use of children by the LRA.

That was then...

So I’m up in the north again, and I realise that, at some stage, I need to give a potted history of the conflict in the north so people can understand the context of what I am discussing. Sad to say – it won’t be today. I am too hot and tired!! I’ve been up here for over a week and still have a while to go, and have just discovered I have to come up again next week as a donor is visiting. *heaves big sigh*

On this trip, I have come to Pader, as on previous trips, but also to Kitgum and Gulu, for the first time since I moved to Uganda two and a half months ago. Those of you who have been reading my missives since 2002 may remember that I visited Kitgum and Gulu that trip, and it was the impression those towns left upon me that made me want to return to work here. It was certainly interesting to see the changes that five years, and more importantly, a ceasefire, have wrought. First of all – we can drive to the towns, and between them, with no problem. Five years ago we had to fly, due to the danger of ambushes. Indeed, last time we came, one of our drivers had just been shot (we saw his vehicle and met him then – and he still works for us – in my department actually) and we met others in the hospital in Gulu who’s car had been ambushed – they were covered in the most terrible burns. This morning, as we drove along the road from Kitgum to Pader, we had no military escort and wore no flak jackets (which were both mandatory a year ago) and the road was filled with children going to school, men riding bicycles and women carrying water or wood on their heads. People were tilling their fields and going about their everyday life, but a year ago that road would have been completely deserted – the only sights to see the frequent crosses marking sites of ambushes (“this is where the priest and two nuns were killed”, “this is where fifteen people from that camp were killed”). The joy of seeing children freely walking the road without the fear of abduction is pretty huge.
Similarly, in Gulu, we went one evening to visit the wife of a colleague who is seriously ill in the hospital with meningitis. This hospital is a very large complex and set in a big compound. For many years, it housed the ‘night commuters’, who were children, or whole families, who walked in to town every night to sleep in the relative safety of proximity to army barracks. They would walk up to five hours each way and needless to say, this dominated their lives. However, the fear of remaining in their villages, with a fairly high guarantee of eventually being attacked by the rebels, meant that the trip was a no-brainer. If the rebels came to your village, chances were all the children would be abducted and taken to Sudan for service in the rebel army, most women would be raped and then perhaps killed, and most men killed. This is the fear that the inhabitants of northern Uganda have lived with for twenty years, as 20,000 children have vanished into the rebel army. We visited this hospital in 2002 and met several thousand people sleeping there through the night – in the rain or the heat, battling mosquitoes and cockroaches, they made their nightly shelter there. Now, however, although the hospital was certainly filled with a large number of miserable people this visit, there were no frightened children huddled under trees or on verandahs, or even out in the open, trying to sleep.

I also went to the office of the Children Of War. This is a reception/rehabilitation center we run for children who have escaped from the rebels, or been captured by the Ugandan army during battles. These children had been brainwashed into soldiers, some of them living with the rebels for years, and received care and counselling at the center before going home to their families (who often also required counselling to understand the trauma their children had gone through and how to support them). I remember meeting children there and hearing their terrifying stories of gun-battles and lost friends – from a 12 year old! They had scars on their wrists and ankles from being bound and many of the girls had children, as they are given as concubines to army commanders. The center now stands empty – all of the rebels are either holed up in Congo or Sudan, or have gone to the reception center in Sudan, where they are meant to wait out peace negotiations under the care of the Ugandan Army. Candice – I was thinking of you so much as I wandered around there again, wondering where you had sat and worked! I remembered having the child sit on my lap and wee all over me – it was so hot I think I dried off in about 20 minutes!!

Altogether, the north is a much more hopeful place now. I become fiercely protective and hopeful as I see these children moving around freely, attending schools that have stood empty for 20 years, moving back to their villages, but perhaps missing siblings, cousins, friends who vanished one night and have never returned. I pray that not a single other child vanishes in the night, winding up with a gun in their hands and a glazed look in their eyes, returning from Sudan to wreak havoc upon their homeland. I desperately hope that the fear fades from the hearts of these children, and they become like most other children in rural Uganda – desperately poor, malnourished and trying to survive, but at least feeling secure. It will be a start – then we can begin working on the rest…

Alive and Kicking

I actually wrote this over a week ago, but have had extremely limited internet access, and this is my first chance to post it. Apologies for the delay - the family will also understand the extenuating circumstances...

No – I haven’t died. Although I have been insanely busy for the past week and have, at times, felt dead on my feet! But I am still alive and kicking and checking in…

Last weekend I finally moved into an apartment – it is fairly nice – has a kitchen and living and dining areas, so I am self sufficient. The complex also has a pool and a gym, which is great for my workout-obsession and makes it easy (except for the strange opening hours. What kind of gym closes at 3.00p.m. on a Sunday?) Also – another Program Officer lives in the complex, which has been fabulous.

Terri is an intern Program Officer from Canada who has been a godsend. During my first week here, she was up north, but the day after she returned, she gave me a call and helped me to find places to go, etc. She also took me to church with her on Sunday, has been showing me how to get from apartment to office and has taken me out to lunch. After the fairly dismal first week, where I received very few pointers about anything, it has been fantastic to have someone take an active interest in welcoming a newcomer and helping me settle in to Kampala. Plus, she’s a real sweetie!

Unfortunately, my weekend was marred somewhat by work. At 4.45p.m on Friday afternoon, I was handed a food security project that was not performing well, and essentially told to ‘fix it’!! I therefore spent half the weekend working and frantically finished the documentation by Tuesday afternoon to send to America (we are asking for an extension to finish the work in). Then Wednesday morning, I left to come up north.

This is my first trip to Pader, an area that was chronically insecure during the insurgency. Peace is holding now and people are beginning to move out of the large mother camps into smaller satellite camps – the first step towards moving home and a very positive one, as it expresses confidence in the future of the peace process and of their area.

I’m thinking at some stage, that I need to provide a full explanation of the situation and history in northern Uganda, but I am incredibly tired now, so this will probably not be the day! Suffice to say that the region is emerging from twenty years of war – battered, bruised and pretty uncertain, but determinedly striding forward. The scars are everywhere – driving north, once you cross the Nile (interesting fact: the Nile has its source in Uganda) you are officially in ‘northern Uganda’ and basically, up until six months ago, in a war zone. There are memorial sites and IDP camps everywhere. (IDP stands for Internally Displaced People, who are basically refugees who have not crossed an international border – pretty much the entire population of northern Uganda are IDPs). Some of the IDP camps are beginning to be dismantled as people move to smaller camps closer to home (but still near army barracks) so there are stretches of land with the remains of huts on them.

Today we went out to a distribution at one of the camps – we do feeding programs up here, and today we were distributing seeds and tools to people. Today’s was reasonably small – I think there were less than 1000 people receiving goods. But apparently our food aid program is massive – there will be distributions covering 40,000 people – this blows my mind and I can’t wait to see how the logistics of such a large distribution are handled. I am not sure how many people we are feeding up here – from conversation I have heard it is at least half a million each month. Pretty huge numbers for a chronic campaign…

I am literally too tired to type anything else right now (too hot to sleep up here – just like Afghanistan!) so will end now. I can’t even post this because the internet isn’t working. So I will save it and post it when I return to Kampala.