Disease and war kill nearly 30,000 in northern Uganda this year
Aug 26, 2005 (Kampala) — Nearly 30,000 people were killed as a result of diseases and conflict in districts in northern Uganda between January and July, an official survey said on Friday.
The survey, carried out last month in Gulu, Kitgum and Parder districts, the epicentre of fighting between the government troops and fighters from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), found that malaria and HIV/AIDS were the leading killers.
“A total excess mortality of 28,283, of which 11,068 (are) children under five, can be projected for the entire Acholi region between January and July 2005,” said the survey.
This is “about 1,000 excess deaths per week,” added the survey: “Health and Mortality Survey Among Internally Displaced Persons in Gulu, Kitgum and Parder Districts in Northern Uganda.”
About 1.13 million people who have been displaced by the conflict, live in the three districts, which have been heavily hit by the deadly conflict.
The survey was carried out in July by Ugandan’s health ministry with support from International Rescue Committee, Britain’s Department for International Development and several United Nations agencies.
The LRA, which operates from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni’s secular government since 1988, vowing to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.
They are best known, however, for atrocities against civilians and abducting villagers as bearers, child soldier conscripts and sex slaves.
The conflict has in all displaced more than 1.6 million people, who are living in squalid camps in northern Uganda.
The report however indicates that less people were killed as a result of direct violence compared to those killed by diseases in what the report called “a very serious humanitarian emergency.”
According the survey, violence accounted for 9.4 percent of the total deaths, which mostly occurred outside displaced people’s camps while the rest succumbed to the diseases described as war-induced to the extent that conflict has prevented treatment and aid.
AFP/ST