U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2000 - Uganda

Uganda hosted nearly 200,000 refugees at the end of 1999, including about 180,000 from Sudan, approximately 8,000 from Rwanda, some 8,000 from Congo-Kinshasa, and 1,000 from Somalia.

An estimated 15,000 Ugandans were refugees, including some 5,000 in Sudan, about 5,000 in Kenya, and nearly 5,000 in Congo-Kinshasa.

Approximately 450,000 Ugandans were internally displaced, although some estimates ranged much higher.

Armed Violence

Armed insurgencies continued to destabilize several areas of Uganda in 1999. The government's counterinsurgency measures have led to arbitrary killings and other human rights abuses, according to human rights observers. Ugandan authorities have regularly predicted the rapid defeat of the rebels, but the predictions have proven to be unfounded.

As many as seven insurgent groups claimed to operate during the year. An insurgency in northern Uganda stretched into its thirteenth year, while conflict in the southwest has persisted for four years. Several new rebel groups emerged in eastern Uganda during 1999. Insurgents reportedly killed 400 people nationwide and abducted some 1,000 civilians in 1999 alone, according to some estimates.

The two most brutal rebel groups were the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), operating in the north, and the Alliance for Democratic Forces (ADF) in the west. The political goals of each group were unclear. ADF forces reportedly consisted of extremist Muslims and former Ugandan soldiers from earlier regimes. The LRA appeared to have roots in extremist Christian and local traditional religions. The Ugandan government has long accused the Sudan government of providing military aid to many of Uganda's insurgencies.

The LRA and other rebels in the north, including the West Nile Bank Front, have killed 5,000 to 10,000 civilians during the 1990s, according to local estimates. ADF rebels have reportedly killed nearly 1,000 people since 1996 in the southwest.

Insurgents regularly have abducted children, tortured and mutilated civilian victims, pillaged local villages, and planted landmines along roads and footpaths. The LRA has abducted up to 20,000 people since the late 1980s – including at least 10,000 children – according to estimates by UNICEF and other agencies. Rebels used abducted children as concubines, cooks, porters, combatants, and human shields.

Attacks by LRA rebels in the north were less frequent in 1999 than in earlier years. In the southwest, attacks by ADF insurgents against civilian targets escalated dramatically during the year, leaving a path of killing, mutilations, abductions, and looting that Ugandan government forces struggled to halt despite regular troop reinforcements.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni offered a general amnesty in June to two of the oldest northern rebel groups in exchange for their disarmament. The Ugandan parliament extended the amnesty offer to all rebel combatants in December. Relatively few rebels laid down their weapons, however.

The governments of Uganda and Sudan signed a formal agreement in December to cease support for rebel groups operating in the two countries, but the impact of the agreement remained unclear as the year ended.

Uprooted Ugandans

Uganda's numerous insurgencies and other localized community violence left an estimated 450,000 persons internally displaced at the end of 1999. Some estimates placed the number of displaced as high as 540,000.

Some 300,000 to 400,000 people were uprooted in northern Uganda, and about 110,000 to 150,000 in the southwest region. Perhaps thousands of others were temporarily displaced in northeastern Uganda by clan-based violence there.

Aid agencies struggled against security problems and funding shortfalls to assist the country's huge displaced population. UNICEF reported that its financial appeals for programs in Uganda in 1999 were among its most underfunded in the world, with less than one-fifth of the needed donations. Insufficient funds prevented the World Health Organization from conducting comprehensive health assessments of the country's internal displacement camps.

The UN World Food Program (WFP) reported in mid-year that international donors had provided less than half of the 59,000 tons of food aid needed throughout the country. UN agencies complained in November of a "generally poor donor response" to the country's humanitarian needs.

The majority of families displaced in the north were uprooted prior to 1999 and have been unable to return home for fear of renewed attacks by the LRA and other guerrillas. Up to 80 percent of the population in Gulu District remained displaced.

Since 1996, the government has moved tens of thousands of northern families into about 30 so-called "protected villages." Some residents moved into the camps voluntarily, while others resisted and were forced into the sites by government security personnel.

The "protected camps" provided poor security for inhabitants and instead became a target for rebel attacks, resulting in the deaths, mutilation, and abduction of displaced persons. In late 1999, LRA raids forced some 10,000 people to flee from a poorly protected displacement camp.

Humanitarian conditions in the camps were difficult. Many camp residents, cut off from their homes and livelihoods, lived in abject poverty. Government soldiers at some sites prevented displaced persons from traveling more than two miles (three km) beyond their camp, thus limiting access to farm land and other economic opportunities. Camp residents often lived under a 10 p.m. curfew.

Uprooted northern Ugandans complained that designated camps offered poor services. Primary schools were overcrowded and secondary schools rarely existed. Families complained that life in the camps encouraged juvenile delinquency and was destroying social values. Residents and local human rights organizations complained of harassment and other abuses by government soldiers stationed at the camps.

Because of diminished rebel activity in the north in 1999, government officials gradually began to loosen rules governing the displacement camps. More residents began to engage in agricultural activities on nearby land, or to travel home during the day. Malnutrition levels improved in the second half of the year, UN aid workers reported. Relief agencies were able to travel without military escorts as security improved. WFP planned food-for-work programs and school lunch projects.

UN agencies warned, however, that some displaced families in the north would be unable to go home because of landmines planted in their home areas. Years of instability have left three-quarters of the schools and health clinics closed in the hardest hit areas of the north.

In southwest Uganda, security and humanitarian conditions deteriorated during 1999 as ADF rebels mounted several offensives and government troops intensified counterinsurgency efforts.

Rebel attacks "caused rapid and massive displacement and re-displacement of the majority of the residents" in some southwestern areas, UN aid workers reported. Rebel raids uprooted 50,000 to 70,000 people during March-April and pushed an additional 10,000 persons from their homes later in the year.

The newly uprooted families joined tens of thousands of other persons displaced in previous years. Approximately 100,000 or more uprooted people congregated at more than 35 sites in and near the southwestern town of Bundibugyo, which grew to five times its normal size. An additional 20,000 or more people remained uprooted in the nearby Kasese District.

The displaced population in southwestern Uganda was "scared, traumatized, and paranoid" after years of rebel atrocities, aid workers reported. Rebels targeted civilians, particularly residents of displacement camps. ADF guerrillas killed five displaced persons in March and abducted 15 uprooted people in June. Many other incidents were likely unreported.

Security at displacement camps improved slightly after government military reinforcements arrived in the second half of the year. Some camp residents began to work and travel outside their camps during daylight hours.

Humanitarian aid agencies temporarily evacuated from some southwestern locations in April because of security problems. Although aid deliveries resumed in May, WFP suspended its work in mid-December because of new rebel attacks near Bundibugyo town. A letter by ADF guerrillas in December threatened to ambush food deliveries to the area.

More than 70 displaced persons died in southwest Uganda early in the year because of injuries and poor health conditions, Médecins Sans Frontières reported in March. Some camp residents contracted malaria, cholera, and diarrhea, according to local health workers. Malnutrition rates were generally low, but nearly six percent of all displaced children under age five suffered severe malnutrition in the Bundibugyo area, UN aid workers reported in October. However, rumors of starvation among displaced persons in southwestern Uganda in December were unfounded, aid agencies stated.

In northeastern Uganda's Karamoja area, violence among local people, known as Karamojong, left hundreds dead in 1999 and triggered a government military operation to quell the unrest. The area has a long history of violence linked to local cattle rustling. The number of persons uprooted in the violence was unknown.

"The upsurge in violence in Karamoja...was met largely with silence by the international community," a UN report stated.

Ugandan Refugees

Some 15,000 Ugandan refugees remained in exile at the end of 1999. About two-thirds fled the country many years ago and have remained long-term refugees. Several thousand fled southwest Uganda during 1999 to escape the attacks by insurgents.

Ugandan officials have halted the organized repatriation of Ugandan refugees from Sudan since mid-1998 to review information about the identities of potential returnees.

General Refugee Issues

The nearly 200,000 refugees in Uganda at the end of 1999 were the largest refugee population in the country in several years. Some 15,000 new refugees entered the country during the year.

Uganda has practiced "a liberal refugee policy" for many years, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated in 1999. The government has attempted to place refugees into settlements with access to farm land and has tried to avoid placing refugee populations in crowded camps. Most refugee sites have included food aid, primary schools, training in literacy and occupational skills, and small credit programs to encourage business activities.

The government and UNHCR worked jointly during 1999 to prepare a new refugee law that would eventually strengthen the legal rights of refugees in Uganda, and would clarify the government's asylum procedures. UNHCR expressed hope that government authorities might enact the new law in 2000.

Refugees from Sudan

Large numbers of Sudanese refugees have lived in northern Uganda for years because of civil war in their own country. Refugee movements back and forth across the border have become common, linked to the level of violence in Sudan and rebel activity inside Uganda.

About 10,000 new Sudanese refugees entered Uganda during 1999. Many of the new Sudanese arrivals came from neighboring Congo-Kinshasa after civil war and other tensions there made continued asylum untenable in that country.

The Sudanese refugee population lived in 25 designated settlements in northern Uganda and nearly equaled the local population in some districts. Nearly 90 percent had access to farm land. About 25,000 grew enough food to become self-sufficient. Others continued to receive partial food rations during the year. In addition to standard social services, aid workers provided training projects in carpentry and honey-making.

Ugandan officials and UNHCR continued efforts to help Sudanese refugees become economically self-reliant and better integrated with local communities. The program has attempted to increase refugees' agricultural production and vocational skills, and give refugees equal access to local schools, health clinics, and other routine community services. UNHCR reported "substantial progress in the implementation of the self-reliance strategy" in 1999.

Security for refugee settlements and aid workers remained a concern, as in previous years. Ugandan guerrillas have killed more than 110 Sudanese refugees since 1996 and have abducted large numbers of refugee women and children.

In June 1999, Ugandan rebels temporarily abducted at least 20 refugees. UNHCR provided counseling to former abductees. "Victims are usually traumatized and need immediate support," UNHCR reported.

Ugandan authorities arrested 31 Sudanese and Congolese refugees for allegedly aiding Ugandan guerrillas.

In addition to security threats posed by Ugandan rebels, a Sudanese rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), has routinely entered refugee sites to conscript young men and women and to retrieve deserters from their ranks, according to relief workers. UNHCR issued strong protests to Ugandan officials in an effort to gain their help in halting the SPLA conscriptions.

Insecurity has complicated humanitarian aid to northern Ugandan refugee sites for years. Security concerns in 1999 prevented UNHCR from opening a new settlement site that aid workers had prepared. As rebel attacks diminished in northern Uganda during the year, highways became safer and aid agencies gained better access to Sudanese refugee populations.

UNHCR reported no significant repatriation by Sudanese refugees during the year.

Refugees from Congo-Kinshasa

Some 8,000 refugees from Congo-Kinshasa (also known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire) lived at designated refugee sites in Uganda at the end of 1999. About 3,000 new Congolese refugees arrived during the year as civil war and ethnic hostilities continued in their own country. Thousands of others reportedly fled to Uganda temporarily before returning rapidly to Congo-Kinshasa.

Ugandan soldiers forcibly repatriated several hundred Congolese refugees on the final day of 1998 and the first days of 1999 as UNHCR prepared to transport them to a safer location farther from the border. Ugandan authorities investigated the incident, and no similar forced returns occurred, according to UNHCR. The refugee agency subsequently transferred some 2,000 Congolese refugees to safer sites beyond the border area.

Most Congolese refugees lived at the Nakivale and Kyangwali sites in southern Uganda. Two-thirds of the refugees had access to farm land. Aid projects emphasized increased food production by refugee families to make them more self-reliant.

Refugees from Rwanda

Some 8,000 Rwandan refugees lived at the Oruchinga and Nakivale settlement sites in southern Uganda including about 500 new refugees who arrived in 1999. Most of the refugees received only partial food rations because they were already partially self-supporting; only one-fourth of the refugees required full rations.

Government officials and UNHCR charged that 60 Rwandans at Nakivale refugee settlement resided there illegally because they were not genuine refugees or did not qualify for refugee protection in Uganda. The 60 Rwandans were part of a larger population of nearly 2,000 Rwandan asylum seekers who had entered Uganda after several years of asylum in Tanzania. Ugandan officials threatened to deport the Rwandans who had arrived via Tanzania, but reportedly no deportations occurred.

About 350 Rwandan refugees repatriated with UNHCR assistance during the year.