Author Topic: UN urges countries to do more to end "litany of horrors" in Uganda  (Read 111 times)

Don Rizzle

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UN urges end to Ugandan 'horror'
Northern Uganda is suffering the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world with 20,000 children caught up in a war, the United Nations has warned.
The UN's head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, urged countries to do more to end what he called a "litany of horrors" stretching back 18 years.

The conflict has displaced about 1.6 million people, said Mr Egeland.

However, Uganda's ambassador to the UN said his country was winning the war, adding: "We don't need the UN."


Frances Butagira said many commanders of the rebel militia known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which has been fighting government forces in the area since 1986, had been captured or killed.


 EIGHTEEN YEARS OF HORROR
100,000 deaths
20,000 children abducted and used as fighters or sex slaves
1.6m people displaced
40,000 "night commuters" - people who flee their homes by night to avoid raids
Sources: Jan Egeland, news agencies 

"We shall win the war and soon," he told BBC News.

He added: "We don't need peacekeepers. We just want assistance as we wind up the [rebel] camps."

Mr Egeland was briefing the UN Security Council on the Uganda conflict.

He said that peace in neighbouring Sudan might have a positive effect.

"There is a peace process in Sudan which can have a positive spill over because the war in Sudan had a negative spill over earlier on the conflict in northern Uganda," Mr Egeland told reporters after the briefing.


Driven from homes

The LRA has been replenishing its ranks with abducted children and the International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes committed by the rebels, thought to have used bases in Sudan.



Their leader, Joseph Kony, says he is fighting for the rights of local people but observers say he has won little support in a war which has seen mass abduction and rape.


Mr Egeland took heart at the fact that the Security Council had "devoted so much time" to the crisis when he addressed it at a closed hearing on Thursday.

However, the UN's emergency relief coordinator stressed that world governments had to pay greater attention, provide more aid and put more pressure on the parties to end the conflict.

Some 80% of LRA fighters are children and about 90% of the local population have been driven from their homes, he said.

"We hope that... we are now seeing a beginning of an end to this endless litany of horrors where children are the fighters and the victims in northern Uganda," Mr Egeland said.

But Mr Butagira said the timing of Mr Egeland's words was unhelpful given the government successes in the war.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/3943677.stm

iraq would just get annexed by iran


That would be a great solution.  If Iran and the majority of Iraqi's are pleased with it, then why shouldn't they do it?