Alexis Okeowo

Moses Owidi’s real-estate agency sits in the middle of a bustling suburb in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. But Owidi’s business has been losing customers for more than a year because of increasingly frequent power cuts. Simple electronic tasks take longer because they have to be done manually. Owidi’s clients have become impatient, and unforeseen costs are regularly incurred.

The trafficking of illegal small arms along the Kenyan, Ugandan and Sudanese borders has increased to the point that an AK-47 rifle will sell for 100 000 Ugandan shillings ($50). A pistol will sell for 50 000 shillings ($30) and a bullet for 200 shillings, or a few American cents. Inside Sudan, an AK-47 can go for as little as a few chickens.

Illegal firearms have replaced bows and arrows as the weapons of choice for the pastoral people on the borders of Kenya and Uganda. The recent escalation of tension between these governments and cattle raiders not only poses a threat to political stability in the region, but has also led to widescale human rights abuses.

Emerging from the bush wearing a bright yellow blouse and with a hoe in her hand, Bisatina Ayet explained that she grows food during the day in a garden near her current home, a camp for internally displaced persons in northern Uganda. At night, Ayet returns to sleep at the camp for fear of her safety. Countless communities in the north remain in a state of limbo as the peace negotiations between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan government continue.