'Uganda conflict is terrorism'

2006-04-01 17:08

Patongo - The situation in Uganda's war-torn northern region is the worst form of terrorism, according to United Nations humanitarian relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland.

Visiting camps in Patongo, Pader district, on Saturday, Egeland called for action to "reverse the humanitarian suffering".

Egeland said: "Conditions here are totally unacceptable. It has to change because people have to live a better life and have a better future."

He said the 40 000 refugees at the Patongo camps needed security so they could live as they did before the conflict erupted in 1986.

Egeland said: "This is the worst type of terrorism. It is unacceptable, intolerable and has to change."

Egeland, however, said there was renewed hope because the conflict was receiving attention locally and from the international community.

He was optimistic this would bring a change to what he described in 2003 as the "world's largest forgotten emergency".

He said there was "a hope we did not have before, because there is now attention in Uganda, in the region and in the world to change the situation".

Ugandan government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army have been fighting in northern Uganda for 20 years.

Egeland is on a four-nation nine-day tour of conflict in the region. He will also visit drought-ravaged east Africa, Sudan, Chad and Kenya.

- AFP