U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2004 - Uganda

Some 1.4 million Ugandans, half of them children, remained internally displaced at the end of 2003, including about 600,000 who became newly uprooted by violence during the year. Some 28,000 Ugandans were refugees or asylum seekers, including about 20,000 in Congo-Kinshasa and 8,000 in Sudan.

More than 230,000 refugees and asylum seekers lived in Uganda at the end of 2003, including more than 198,000 from Sudan, about 20,000 from Rwanda, nearly 12,000 from Congo-Kinshasa, fewer than 1,000 from Somalia, and about 500 from various other African countries.

Some 1,000 refugees in Uganda resettled in Western industrialized countries in 2003.

Displacement in Northern Uganda

For 18 years, insurgents known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have waged a brutal guerilla war in the Acholi area of northern Uganda. LRA rebels dramatically increased attacks on government soldiers, local villagers, and Sudanese refugee camps during 2003. Displacement skyrocketed, with almost 500,000 people displaced in Gulu District alone by year's end.

Following a failed government offensive, called Operation Iron Fist, to defeat the rebels in March 2002, the LRA intensified attacks from its bases in southern Sudan. Rebels expanded attacks from the Acholi districts of Kitgum, Gulu, and Pader in Northern Province into Lira, Apec, and Eastern Province districts of Kaberamaido, Katakwi, Kumi, and Soroti. Primarily LRA rebels, but government soldiers as well, killed, terrorized, and displaced civilians in unprecedented numbers, creating Uganda's worst humanitarian catastrophe in two decades. LRA rebels' brutal tactics, including abductions, executions, torture, mutilation, burning crops and houses, and looting, caused massive displacement. LRA attacks have displaced more than 80 percent of the ethnic Acholi population in Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader districts, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates. Rebels abducted 8,500 children in 2003 to serve as soldiers, laborers, and slaves, in addition to the estimated 20,000 children abducted since violence began in 1986. Fearing abduction in unprotected rural areas, between 10,000 and 25,000 children left villages daily to sleep without protection in urban centers as temporarily displaced "night commuters" during the year.

Despite urging rebels to join peace talks, the Ugandan government failed to broker a settlement to the conflict, renewing its counterinsurgency war despite pleas for negotiation by northern community leaders. An LRA-initiated March cease-fire quickly broke down after both sides violated the agreement, and the Ugandan government resumed offensives in April. LRA rebels and their mystic leader, Joseph Kony, continued to express no clear political ideology beyond destabilizing government control in the region by terrorizing civilians. Ugandan government soldiers and insurgents regularly physically abused, raped, and robbed displaced persons. Camps for displaced persons became the targets of repeated LRA offensives during the year. Many displaced persons had inadequate or nonexistent food, shelter, potable water, sanitation, health care, and education. Worsened security and LRA ambushes of relief deliveries severely restricted humanitarian access to northern camps for internally displaced persons.

Violence in northern Uganda spiked in mid-year. In May, LRA rebels abducted children from a seminary, mutilated a boy in the town of Mucwini, Kitgum District, ambushed a commuter bus, and set fire to 40 huts in the village of Omiya Anyima. In June, the LRA burnt 400 huts, which displaced 2,000 people in the village of Omiya Nyima, hacked to death 13 residents of Paddo internal displacement camp, and destroyed nearly 400 huts, which displaced 1,600 people in Anaka internal displacement camp. Also in June, LRA rebels abducted 12 refugees from Adjumani refugee camps, killed 8 residents of Bibia camp, and abducted about 50 people from Lajwa-tek village. In December, LRA rebels attacked Awere and Lalogi camps for displaced persons outside of Gulu town, causing the camps' residents to flee.

Limited food production and delivery from outside volatile regions, shortages of medicine, and inadequate water and sanitation in congested settlement camps compromised the health of tens of thousands of displaced children, most of whom suffered from critical levels of malnutrition and poor health. In Gulu District, scene of the worst violence and displacement in Uganda, global acute malnutrition among children below the age of five varied between 18 percent in Pabbo camp and 32 percent in Anaka internal displacement camp at mid-year. The majority of displaced children had no access to education. In Kitgum District, most schools closed due to poor security during the year. In Soroti District, schools could only admit 5,000 out of an estimated 15,000 displaced students.

Displacement in Northeast Uganda

Historical tensions among local residents over land use and cattle raids have provoked deadly communal violence in recent years. Aggravated by prolonged drought, incidents of cattle rustling, looting, raping, and killing among the Karamojong and in 2003, increased LRA rebel attacks in northeastern Uganda created further displacement and exacerbated the humanitarian crisis created by drought and inter-ethnic conflict.

In January, Karamojong pastoralists attacked and raided villages in neighboring Katakwi District, after moving west in search of pasture and water for their cattle, adding 10,000 more people to the regions 77,000 displaced. Clashes between two rival clans of the Karamojong tribe, the Pian and the Bokora, in mid-January left 30 people dead. During February and March, armed Karamojong cattle rustlers killed 65 people in Pader district. During the same period, a combination of Karimojong raids, LRA rebel attacks, and marauding Ugandan soldiers displaced 68,000 people in Pader's Kalongo township and 88,000 in Katakwi District. In some instances, Ugandan soldiers burnt huts and food stores to force villagers into camps for displaced persons. In mid-April, armed Pokot cattle rustlers crossed over from western Kenya and attacked Kapchorwa District, killing 24 and displacing 500 others.

As violence spread to the Teso region in June 2003, more than 300,000 villagers fled and settled in public areas such as schools, hospitals, and churches. Teachers suspended classes after thousands of displaced persons occupied local schools. In September, a Karamojong cattle raid killed 31 people, mostly displaced persons from the Ngariam camp in Katakwi District. Poor security and harsh drought conditions prevented relief organizations from operating in the Karamojong region during 2003. The World Food Programme (WFP) managed to deliver some food rations, however.

Refugees from Sudan

Large numbers of Sudanese refugees have lived in northern Uganda for many years, taking refuge from two decades of civil war in their own country. Uganda hosted almost 200,000 Sudanese refugees in 2003, with more than 10,000 new refugees arriving during the year. Ugandan insurgents repeatedly attacked Sudanese refugee settlements during the year. Raids by LRA insurgents have killed as many as 200 Sudanese refugees since 1996.

The Ugandan government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continued to pursue a program they referred to as a Self-Reliance Strategy to help refugees become self-sufficient and, in designated rural areas, to integrate services for refugees and local residents alike. Most refugees at designated sites received farmland and were supposed to share health clinics, schools, and other services with the local population. As in previous years, the government and UNHCR largely refused to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees who did not live in camps or settlement sites in designated rural areas.

The Ugandan government forcibly relocated some 16,000 Sudanese refugees in September from the congested Kiryandongo settlement to Madi Okollo and Ikafi refugee camps in Arua and Yumbe Districts of West Nile, northwestern Uganda. Many Sudanese resisted relocation, fearing the escalation of violence in northern Uganda. Madi Okollo and Ikafi camps are located in LRA rebel territory and precariously border Congo-Kinshasa's volatile Ituri region. Six Sudanese refugees died and many others sustained bullet wounds when refugees clashed with Ugandan security forces, who fired on the refugees during relocation operations. The hasty relocation separated some 500 Sudanese refugee minors from their families. The relocated refugees in Kiryandongo had originally settled in northern Uganda's Acholi Pi camp in Pader District.

In September 2002, Acholi Pi came under attack by LRA rebels. The deaths of nearly 90 refugees spurred the Ugandan government to relocate many Sudanese refugees outside of LRA territory in Kiryandongo settlement. Cramped camp conditions and insufficient facilities in Kiryandongo prompted the government to relocate them once again in 2003. The Ugandan government ordered the expulsion of UNHCR Uganda's representative after he protested against government plans to relocate Sudanese refugees back to war-torn northern Uganda.

Despite the dangers, the overwhelming majority of Sudanese refugees continued to live in more than 40 designated settlements in and around northern Uganda's Adjumani District, where they had access to farmland. Farming plots were small and only semi-fertile, however, and the unsafe conditions forced some refugees to curtail their agricultural activities. Some 45,000 refugee students attended 90 primary schools during the year. Relief organizations conducted a school feeding program that enticed children to attend classes regularly.

Refugees from Rwanda

Some 20,000 Rwandan refugees and asylum seekers lived in Uganda at year's end. Improved conditions in Rwanda made UNHCR officials skeptical about the asylum claims of many of the new arrivals to Uganda. More than 12,000 Rwandan refugees lived at Nakivale camp in southern Uganda. Nearly 5,000 resided at Oruchinga camp near Uganda's border with Rwanda. Some 2,000 lived at a third site, Kyaka II, also in southern Uganda.

Virtually all the refugees were ethnic Hutu. About one-fourth of the refugee population received full food rations each month from relief agencies. Refugees who arrived before 1996 – about three-quarters of the population – received only partial food assistance and relied on farming or other jobs to support themselves. About one-third of the refugees had access to farmland. About 5,000 Rwandan refugee children attended primary schools. Aid organizations offered training to women interested in small businesses, farming, women's rights, and camp leadership roles. In July, UNHCR signed a Tripartite Agreement with the governments of Rwanda and Uganda to assist with the voluntary repatriation of Rwandan refugees in Uganda. Scheduled to begin in 2003, UNHCR indefinitely postponed repatriation of Rwandan refugees due to poor security in Uganda.

Refugees from Congo-Kinshasa

About 12,000 refugees who fled war and human rights violations in Congo-Kinshasa lived at five designated sites, primarily in western Uganda. More than half resided at Kyangwali settlement on the shores of Lake Albert, about 1,000 lived at Imvepi camp in northwest Uganda, and 1,000 lived at Nakivale camp in the south. About 70 percent of the Congolese population received no food aid because UNHCR classified them as self-sufficient. The Ugandan government granted refugee status to some 2,000 asylum seekers from Congo-Brazzaville during the year.

Ethnic violence in Congo-Kinshasa pushed several thousand new Congolese refugees into Uganda during 2003, but many of them quickly returned home. UNHCR provided new refugees who agreed to live in official settlements food, blankets, cooking utensils, water cans, seeds, tools, and access to health care and schools. In January, more than 15,000 fleeing fighting in northeastern Congo-Kinshasa sought refuge in Uganda's Nebbi District, where many refugees languished in dire need of food, water, and medical assistance. More ethnic clashes in Congo-Kinshasa's northeastern Ituri region pushed an additional 15,000 to 20,000 refugees into Uganda's Bundibugyo and Nebbi Districts in May. The Ugandan government and international aid agencies relocated about 1,000 Congolese refugees to Kyakka camp away from the volatile border area of Bundibugyo in June, but, the vast majority of refugees in Nebbi and Bundibugyo disctricts refused to relocate. Almost 15,000 Congolese refugee children enrolled in primary schools in 2003, with girls' enrollment at nearly 80 percent of the female school age population.