Thousands of Sudanese refugees displaced by Ugandan rebels
KAMPALA, April 25, 2004 (dpa) — Thousands of Sudanese refugees are migrating from one camp to another in northern Uganda, in response to attacks three weeks ago by insurgents in the region, prompting aid officials Sunday to caution the situation could deteriorate.
Lords Resistance Army (LRA) guerillas from bases in southern Sudan and northern Uganda, are scattered in various parts of Moyo district and are attacking United Nations-protected refugee camps, forcing up to 25,000 to flee, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Dennis Duncan said Sunday.
Most camps are situated around the town of Adjumani near the Sudan border, about 600 kilometres north of Kampala.
Basically this has been going on for the past three weeks. There has been an escalation of LRA attacks on refugee settlements in Adjumani. Between 20,000 and 25,000 people are moving from one camp to another, heading north and west along The Nile for safer areas,” UNHCR spokesman, Dennis Duncan said by telephone Sunday.
Nobody has been killed or injured so far but there have been sporadic raids for food and medicine by the LRA. The SPLA (southern Sudan rebels of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army) and Sudan’s government forces have been hammering them from all directions, but they continue to attack refugee camps and abduct people,” he said.
Uganda is hosting about 165,000 Sudanese refugees in U.N.- protected camps in the northern and central regions who are fleeing the decades-long civil war in their country.
The LRA, who have been fighting the government in Kampala for 18 years, have been attacking both the Sudanese refugees and Ugandans in the north leading to the displacement of some 1.5 million people.
Under an agreement reached between Uganda and neighbouring Sudan two years ago, Ugandan troops were given permission to enter southern Sudan and fight the LRA from there while the Sudanese army also pledged to help track down the rebels.
Duncan said that the Ugandan government has mobilized two battalions of soldiers – about 1,600 men – to protect the refugees.