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Background Information on the Conflicts We Address:

Northern Uganda

War has raged in northern Uganda for over two decades as the Government of Uganda has battled against a sectarian rebel army known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). As a result, nearly two million innocent civilians have been forced from their homes. Led by Joseph Kony, the LRA has been widely accused of numerous atrocities, including murder, rape, mutilation and sexual enslavement of civilians. In addition, the LRA is notorious for abducting thousands of children and youth, forcing them to commit atrocities against each other and their families. In fact, it is estimated that more than 90% of the LRA’s troops were abducted as children. Girls are also forced to become soldiers, wives of soldiers, or sex and labor slaves. All told, more than 25,000 children aged seven to seventeen have been abducted from towns and displacement camps. Those caught attempting to escape are killed. The LRA has also been active in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, and southern Sudan.

Karamoja (Uganda)

The Karamoja sub-region in the northeast of Uganda has also been prone to outbreaks of violence. Environmental degradation coupled with extreme poverty, chronic food shortages, a lack of jobs and the prevalence of automatic weapons has led clans to launch violent raids to steal valuable livestock from neighbors as a means of survival. As a result, thousands of people have been displaced from their homes.

Eastern Congo

Over the past decade, the Democratic Republic of Congo has become one of the world’s worst and most unknown humanitarian crises. Although a peace agreement signed in 2002 officially ended the country’s five-year war that claimed an estimated three million lives, conflicts have persisted in the eastern part of the country. Fighting for land and resources continued and dramatically escalated in 2008, as rebel forces advanced upon government bases in the provincial capital of Goma. Over 300,000 people fled as a result, including members of the Congolese army who have been implicated in acts of looting, rape and killing as they fled. There are also reports of rebel attacks on IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps and renewed child recruitment.

Sudan

From 1983 to 2005, Sudan fought its longest civil war, which largely pitted the Muslim north against the Christian and Animist south, killing at least 2 million people and displacing 4 million. While the war formally ended with the signing of a peace agreement in January 2005, this agreement has not been fully implemented and tensions remain between Arab militias and southern fighters. Some 100,000 people remained displaced by June 2008 due to fear of a return to full-scale civil war.

In addition, the western region of Darfur continues to suffer from an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Since February 2003, when fighting broke out between rebels and the Janjaweed, a government-supported Arab militia, it is estimated that more than 300,000 people have been killed and over two million have fled their homes. The Janjaweed are accused of carrying out a campaign of genocide in Darfur, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, on charges war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

All told, more than 3 million Sudanese remain displaced within Sudan and in surrounding countries, including Uganda.

*To see how Refuge and Hope is reaching out to those who have been affected by these conflicts, please CHECK OUR BLOG regularly.

The following sources were consulted: International Crisis Group, International Rescue Committee, GlobalSecurity.org, BBC, and Village of Hope Uganda.

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