Improved security in war-ravaged northern Uganda following peace talks between the government and rebels allowed 230 000 internal refugees to go home in 2006, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.
Talks are set to resume in south Sudan this month after the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels agreed to extend a landmark ceasefire with the government in December.
Despite accusations of violations on both sides, the truce, which was first signed in August, has largely held, raising hopes that nearly two million people uprooted by the 20-year conflict will be able to return home.
”Improvements in overall security … in 2006 encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to move voluntarily out of camps, seeking to support themselves,” WFP said in a statement.
Conditions in Uganda’s refugee camps are squalid and unsanitary. Most refugees rely on food aid rather than leave the camps to till their fields and risk rebel attack or abduction.
”Some of these families have spent years in the camps, and some of their children have never known a normal life. It’s enormously encouraging to see people feel safe enough to go home,” WFP deputy country director Alix Loriston said.
The road to peace in northern Uganda, however, is not assured.
Many Ugandans fear LRA leader Joseph Kony will never quit his jungle hideout and sign a final peace deal unless the International Criminal Court in The Hague drops indictments for war crimes against him and four other top commanders.
On Thursday, the state-owned New Vision quoted Ugandan army sources as saying that LRA fighters broke the truce by killing 13 civilians in road ambushes in south Sudan in the past week, although south Sudanese officials were unavailable for comment. — Reuters