UGANDA: Security forces struggle as LRA attacks escalate

YAMBIO, 14 September 2009 (IRIN) - Attacks attributed to Ugandan-led rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have killed at least 188 civilians and displaced 68,000 in Southern Sudan since January 2009, with 137 abductions also reported, according to the UN. "Many innocent people are losing their lives every week, and the United Nations is very concerned about the killing, abduction, maiming and displacement of innocent civilians," said Ameerah Haq, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan. In Sudan, Western Equatoria State has been hardest hit by the recent upsurge in attacks blamed on the LRA, which have also taken place in several regions in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR). "During the last six weeks alone, 11 incidents of LRA attacks have been reported, seven of them in the first week of September," Haq told reporters on 11 September during a visit to Yambio, the state capital of Western Equatoria. In Nairobi, Justin Labeja, the head of the LRA's peace negotiating team, questioned the authorship of the attacks. "It is very unfair because nobody can come up with clear concrete evidence. Who can say this is the LRA of [leader Joseph] Kony who is doing this?" he said. What the "real LRA" is any more is hard to pin down. When it emerged in northern Uganda in the late 1980s the LRA was made up almost exclusively of people from the region's Acholi community, fighting perceived marginalization. The LRA now includes nationals from Sudan, the DRC and CAR - many as a result of recruitment-by-abduction. In Southern Sudan "LRA" has been used as a catch-all label for any armed group which attacks civilians. However, those displaced by the latest attacks reported tactics which bore the hallmarks of the LRA, including grotesque killings and targeting church congregations.
Hard task Combating the small groups of guerrillas - experienced in jungle warfare and able to slip across international frontiers with apparent ease - has become a hard task. "There is not much coming from the [Sudanese] state, they are not able to provide the security that they [people] need," said the UN's Haq. "While the humanitarian community is providing food and other non-food items, the food itself is becoming a magnet for LRA attacks. The answer to that is really how we can provide security around a perimeter." Extra troops from the south's military, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), have been sent to the region, according to spokesman Maj-Gen Kuol Diem Kuol. "We are working hard and doing all we can to ensure the safety of civilians in the region," he explained. The main military force are Ugandan troops, whose soldiers have established camps in Sudan to try and hunt down the now mobile LRA units in Southern Sudan, DRC and CAR. The UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has just 200 blue helmets based in the sprawling region of Western Equatoria. UN stretched Officials said the force has been stretched by a string of recent violent inter-ethnic clashes elsewhere in Southern Sudan. Its mandate, one official added, needed to be beefed up by the UN Security Council to allow active military engagement against the LRA. "We need an integrated approach to really provide security to these people, [and] that will require the support of the UN and UNMIS," said Jemma Nunu Kumba, the governor of Western Equatoria. "UNMIS needs to get involved just like MONUC [the UN peacekeeping mission] in Congo [DRC], to be able to repulse the rebels when they are attacking the civilians," he added. Those displaced by the LRA say more effort is needed, not simply to hunt the rebels, but to provide security that would allow people to return to their homes.
"The LRA have killed our people, and they took two of my children," said Karina Zeferino, who fled after attacks in August on her hometown of Ezo, close to Sudan's border with CAR. She trekked the 155km to Yambio town with her remaining young daughter. After the attacks, peacekeepers airlifted UN staff and aid workers from Ezo by helicopter, shutting down international humanitarian work in that area. "People are suffering, but we cannot go home because the LRA will attack again," added Zeferino, holding her child tightly to her side. "There is no help for us there, so that is why we have come to Yambio, but it is hard here too." "The LRA will remain a problem and we will be unable to go home until pressure is really put on them by all sides," said Gaaniko Bate, a leader of the ever-growing Makpandu camp in Southern Sudan, which hosts some 2,530 refugees from DRC. "These people will not be easily stopped," he added.

SOMALIA: Puntland warns of looming crisis as drought bites

NAIROBI, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of people affected by a severe drought in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, are in desperate need of assistance, with officials describing the situation as "very critical". "We are at a critical stage and if help does not come within weeks the situation could develop into a catastrophe," Abdullahi Abdirahman Ahmed, head of the Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management Agency of Puntland (HADMA), told IRIN. He said a recent assessment by his agency showed that almost all of Puntland was affected by the drought. "We saw livestock, including camels, dying by the roadside. Others were being abandoned by their owners because they were too weak," he said. He said the authorities had started water trucking to the worst-affected parts of the region. "The government effort can only cover about 30 percent of those who need help," he said, adding that Puntland did not have the capacity to mount the kind of operation needed. "The resources are simply not there." Ahmed said HADMA had informed the agencies of the severity of the situation. "This is not a situation like any we have seen and so I hope that agencies don't treat it as business as usual." Livestock dying Haji Muse Ghelle, the governor of Bari region, one of the worst-affected areas, told IRIN some 30 percent of livestock in his region had died and the remaining animals were in very poor condition. He said the Gu (long) rains had failed, leaving the barkads (water catchments) in the area dry. "Eighty percent of water comes from barkads and they are almost dry." Hundreds of families were moving from their villages in search of water and food, he said. Ghelle, who toured parts of his region from 25 August to 4 September, said he had found villages "totally abandoned. They are moving wherever they think they can find water and food."
He said both people and the remaining livestock were weak and "could not last long without help". The priority should be to save the lives of the people and what is left of the livestock, the economic mainstay of the area. "On my tour we did not see people dying but what we saw was close to it." Said Waberi Mohamed, the district commissioner of Qandala, in Bari region, one of the hardest-hit areas, said some 13 settlements in the district, with 1,000 families (about 6,000 people), had been abandoned. He said the district was entirely dependent on barkads, which had run dry. "We are facing one of the worst water shortages I have ever seen," he said. Ahmed of HADMA said many nomadic families were moving to towns in search of assistance. He said the first priority was to deliver water to affected areas and to distribute food to those who had lost their livestock. "If something major is not done to intervene within the next few weeks, we will be facing a serious crisis," he warned. ah/mw[END]

SOMALIA: Record number of displaced at 1.5 million

NAIROBI, 7 September 2009 (IRIN) - The number of conflict- and drought-displaced Somalis has reached 1.55 million, despite a drop in the past two months in the rate of displacement from the capital, Mogadishu, according to the UN. Roberta Russo, a spokeswoman for the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, told IRIN on 7 September that hundreds of families were still fleeing the city, despite a significant drop since the beginning of July, with almost 95,000 leaving all areas "in the last two months"; 77,000 of whom were from Mogadishu. The UN estimates that up to 3.8 million Somalis, almost half the population, urgently need humanitarian aid. "The displaced people are among the most affected by the crisis," Russo said. The displaced, most of whom are women and children, are living in desperate conditions, she said. The main reason for their flight is insecurity, although drought and the lack of livelihoods are also cited as causes, Russo added. Ali Sheikh Yassin, the deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organization, told IRIN that people were continuing to flee Mogadishu, "because the insecurity is increasing, not decreasing. As we speak, people are leaving and I am sure many more will join them. There is nothing to stay for. No peace and no hope for peace." He said indications were that the violence - pitting government forces and African Union peacekeeping troops (AMISOM) against two insurgent groups, Al-Shabab and Hisbul-Islami - would get worse. "All sides are preparing for what they think is a final battle but nothing is ever final in Somalia," Yassin said. He said the main losers in any such encounter would be civilians. "Neither side cares what happens to them so the displacement will probably go much higher in the next few months."
According to Jowahir Ilmi, head of Somali Women Concern (SWC), a local NGO, the displaced from Mogadishu are still going to the Afgoye [30km south of Mogadishu] area. "Every day we are registering new arrivals. Unfortunately, even the month of Ramadan has not led to a truce." The fighting has been going on in Mogadishu since Ethiopian troops withdrew from the country in December 2008, leading to thousands of deaths and injuries as well as the displacement of hundreds of thousands from Mogadishu and parts of southern and central Somalia. Yassin said the fighting was spreading beyond Mogadishu. "In the past we had displaced from Mogadishu only but almost every town in parts of central Somalia is being touched by the violence," he said. "From Jowhar [south central] to Harardhere [to the northeast] people are being displaced by violence." He said the current drought was another factor. More and more drought-displaced pastoralists were heading into towns in search of help after losing all their livestock, he said. "The only problem this time is the town's people are as badly off as they are, so cannot help them," Yassin added. He urged donor agencies to reach out to the displaced in remote and often inaccessible areas. Many of the humanitarian agencies, however, lacked access to those who need their help. "Access is still very limited due to insecurity in the areas hosting the majority of the displaced," said Russo.