Refugees International (RI) is conducting a humanitarian assessment mission in northern Uganda from November 4-22.  This will be RI’s third mission to northern Uganda in the past 3 years.

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, murdering people, burning villages, and abducting roughly 25,000 children to fight with them.  This has led to the displacement of over 1.6 million people, 90 percent of the population in northern Uganda.  These numbers of internally displaced are equal to those in Darfur, but the international community has not mobilized an equal response.  Although the Ugandan military has experienced some recent military successes, the situation on the ground has not improved.  

Jan Egeland, the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, has called northern Uganda the world’s greatest neglected emergency. The displaced live in squalid, over-crowded camps in continual fear of LRA attacks, without access to adequate food, water, healthcare or education.  Gender-based violence in the camps is endemic.  Every night, tens of thousands of women and children risk attack and walk to town centers in search of safety for the night.  The international community and the Government of Uganda have failed to effectively meet the needs of Ugandan civilians.  

Ugandan civil society, religious and traditional leaders have repeatedly pointed out the futility of a military solution to the crisis in northern Uganda.  Eighty percent of the LRA consists of children abducted against their will, and these children are the casualties of the war.  Attempts at peacefully resolving the crisis have been unsuccessful.

In Uganda, the RI team will assess the protection and assistance needs of IDPs and whether or not these needs are being met.  The RI team will specifically focus on the mental health needs of Ugandan civilians and different approaches to providing psycho-social support.  The crisis in northern Uganda has been repeatedly referred to as a “crisis of children.”  We will focus on assessing the support and services being provided to former child combatants, particularly girls.  In addition, given the increasing numbers of LRA deserters requesting amnesty, the RI team will focus on the reintegration assistance being provided to ex-combatants.  We will also explore long-term prospects for peace and reconciliation.