Refugees International: Articles: Press Release: Mission to Investigate Humanitarian Crisis in Northern Uganda

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Press Release: Mission to Investigate Humanitarian Crisis in Northern Uganda

Refugees Voices: The Internally Displaced in Northern Uganda
11/03/2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Megan Fowler, 202-828-0110 x214
megan@refintl.org

Refugees International Mission to Investigate Humanitarian Crisis in Northern Uganda

Washington, DC – Three advocates from Refugees International (RI) arrived in Kampala, Uganda today to begin a mission that will assess the needs of the more than 1.6 million people who have been displaced in the ongoing war in Northern Uganda. The RI team, which is made up of Senior Advocate Michelle Brown, Advocate Kavita Shukla and Boardmember Jan Weil, plans to assess the support and services being provided to internally displaced peoples and former child combatants, particularly girls. This is RI’s third mission to Uganda in the past three years.

“The international community has failed the people of northern Uganda,” said Michelle Brown, Senior Advocate for Refugees International and one of the three women participating in the mission. “For 18 years, the Lord's Resistance Army has terrorized the people of northern Uganda. The international community has begun to talk about the problems, but we would like to see words translated into actions.”

Uganda is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. For the past 18 years, the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been conducting a campaign of terror against civilians in the north – raping women, burning villages, abducting roughly 25,000 children to fight, and murdering people. Because of the lack of safety in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, tens of thousands of women and children risk attack every night and walk miles to neighboring town centers in order to find a safe place to sleep for the night. The crisis rivals the situation in Darfur, Sudan, but the international community has not mobilized an equal response.

“This is the world’s greatest neglected emergency,” Brown said. “Displaced peoples are living in squalid, overcrowded camps in constant fear of being attacked or abducted. We call on the international community to take immediate action to protect these people.”

RI’s advocates also plan to investigate:

How to increase the level of protection for the displaced living in camps;
The mental health needs and services of Ugandan civilians;
The level of reintegration assistance being provided to ex-combatants; and
The long-term prospects for peace and reconciliation.

Refugees International is a 25-year-old organization that generates lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people around the world and works to end the conditions that create displacement. In addition to the mission to Uganda, the organization recently finished missions in Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, and currently has missions scheduled for Southern Sudan and Ethiopia, Cambodia and Thailand, and Estonia and Bangladesh.

Michelle, Kavita and Jan will be in Uganda between Nov. 3 - Nov. 18. Michelle and Kavita will also be in Nairobi from Nov. 19 - Nov. 22. To schedule an interview, please contact Megan Fowler at (202) 828-0110 x214 or megan@refintl.org.

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