Uganda

In the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in the south of neighboring Sudan, Ugandan rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been perpetrating acts of extreme violence on civilians in response to operations conducted against them by national armies of the DRC, Uganda, and southern Sudan.

Since October 2008, following the latest fighting between armed groups in North Kivu province, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have been assisting refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the Uganda border. At the Ishasha border crossing, the number of new arrivals has decreased significantly as the fighting in DRC eased.

Civilians are fleeing to Uganda to escape the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Refugees in Matanda camp, which serves as a transitory camp, just over the border in Ishasha, say they are afraid to go back, fearing violence, massacres, and forced conscription into the military or armed groups. The little news they receive from relatives who remain there reinforces their belief that it is not safe to return.

For the past several weeks Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have been assessing the refugee situation at the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, more than 27,000 people have crossed the border with Uganda since the end of August. Monique Doux, Field Coordinator in Matanda Refugee camp, close to the border town of Ishasha, talks about the situation there.

For the past several weeks, MSF teams have been assessing the refugee situation at the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. An 11-person team (three doctors, four nurses and three logisticians) are now working in three different sites to offer assistance to the refugees.

During one week in July, 410 new cases of Hepatitis E were diagnosed by MSF in Kitgum district,  home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.

MSF nurse Clara Delacre recently returned from northeastern Uganda, where she had been working in a nutritional program in Kaabong district, Karamoja region. Here, she talks about the program and about how MSF responds to malnutrition.

MSF has been responding to an outbreak of cholera in the Arua district of northwest Uganda since early January 2008. In the Oli neighborhood of Arua town, MSF is supporting a cholera treatment center (CTC) in collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health. Medical staff at the Oli CTC have admitted up to 40 patients per day.

When fighting erupted between armed groups and government forces in the North Kivu province of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in August 2007, it forced an estimated 10,000 Congolese to flee for safety over the border into Uganda.  Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) helped set up a transit site in Nyakabanda, situated about 10 miles from the DRC border in Uganda’s Kisoro district. Nurse Laura Cobey arrived to be field coordinator for the MSF project in October, just as a renewed surge in fighting pushed another wave of Congolese to seek refuge in Nyakabanda. Cobey describes the quick opening of the site and conditions for the estimated 13,000 people who lived there until its December closing.

Kampala/Geneva, December 7, 2007 - On November 29, the Ugandan Ministry of Health confirmed a case of Ebola in the western region of the country. On December 1, after carrying out a rapid assessment, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) set up isolation units in the Kikyo health center and the Bundibugyo hospital.

Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the Ebola virus in samples collected in western Uganda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the Ugandan Ministry of Health, a total of 64 suspected cases and 21 deaths have been reported in the villages of Kykyo and Bundibugyo. The first Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams arrived in Bundibugyo, the epicenter, on December 1.

Alison Wong was the pharmacist for the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) HIV/AIDS program at Arua Regional Referral Hospital in Uganda from September 2005 to October 2006. MSF began the program in 2001 to provide antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to people in the region living with HIV. It has grown to include treatment for people co-infected with HIV and TB, and to establishing better decentralized care.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has completed a mass meningitis-vaccination campaign in two districts of the West Nile region of Uganda, supervising the vaccination of 291,000 people and assisting with the vaccination of 333,000 more.

Barely two months into Africa's dry season, there are several countries facing severe outbreaks of meningitis. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is already responding to epidemics in the Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan, and northern Uganda.

Since the first cases of meningococcal meningitis A were confirmed in two districts of the West Nile region of northern Uganda in early January, MSF has been working closely with the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MoH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to reduce mortality, minimize the spread of the epidemic, and strengthen the epidemiological-surveillance system.

After nearly two decades of conflict between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), an estimated 90-95% of the population in northern Uganda now lives in overcrowded camps for displaced people, some within a kilometer of their homes. Many in the three most affected districts of Kitgum, Gulu, and Pader are so dependent on outside assistance for health care, water and sanitation services, and food.

"We should not assume that humanitarian assistance is the only option in northern Uganda," said Francois Delfosse, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) programs in Pader District's village of Patongo. "People rely on outside assistance because the government has not entirely met its responsibilities."

Every night, up to 7,000 children stream into the northern Ugandan town of Gulu to seek refuge from the conflict that simmers around them. Walking as far as 6 miles from displacement camps and the periphery of Gulu town, these children are the so-called night commuters, one of the most vivid symbols of the violence which continues to wrack the region.

Kampala, New York December 12, 2005 — Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Interplast Holland have begun a reconstructive surgery program for civilians mutilated in the course of the conflict in northern Uganda. Many villagers have had lips, ears, noses or fingers cut off as part of the extensive violence directed at civilians in the region in recent years.

Kampala, 23 November 2005 — Increasing insecurity, characterized by violent ambushes on civilian and humanitarian vehicles in the past weeks, will severely impact the already desperate situation of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the civil conflict in northern Uganda, according to the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). MSF calls upon all parties in the region to respect the freedom of movement of civilians and the independence and safety of humanitarian aid workers while ensuring their right to unhindered access to people in need of assistance. Assistance to displaced people living in northern Uganda has been woefully inadequate and will be reduced further if this insecurity persists, warns MSF. This issue must be urgently addressed.

Janthimala Price, a midwife from Australia, spent 20 months at the Arua Hospital AIDS Program in rural northwestern Uganda. The program was set up in July 2002 by the Arua Regional Referral Hospital Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to treat HIV/AIDS patients.

Kampala, 8 November 2004 - Recent retrospective mortality surveys conducted by the international medical relief organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) highlight the immense suffering and the critical nature of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Northern Uganda. According to MSF, the severity of the crisis requires urgent action from the international community and aid organizations.

Robert Levin, MD, a family physician from Minneapolis, Minnesota, returned recently from a six-month mission in Lira, a town in northern Uganda, where he treated malnourished children admitted to a therapeutic feeding center operated by MSF.

July 29, 2004, STEPHEN LEWIS, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa:  I am honored to share this time with all of you. I've never been at such a celebration before. I've spent the last 3 years of my life traveling through Africa, observing the situation of HIV and AIDS, and I've never been at such a moment of triumph, and I congratulate you for it. It will obviously allow me to tell the world what is happening here in Arua. I'm especially happy to be here at the invitation of the Arua Regional Hospital, and Dr. Olaro, and, of course, colleagues from MSF. I am a Canadian. I have watched MSF in many parts of the world and in my own country. In my view, MSF is probably the most principled and impressive nongovernmental organization on the planet, and it is a pleasure they are here.

In Arua, MSF now provides medical care for nearly 3,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. In July 2004, MSF collected testimonies from patients undergoing treatment about their experiences living with HIV/AIDS before and since receiving treatment.

Up to 12,000 children, mostly 10 year olds but some as young as 2, walk several miles from villages and IDP camps surrounding this northern Ugandan town, hoping to find shelter for the night.

March 1, 2004 - More than 550 people died and thousands were made homeless when an earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale ripped through Al Houceima, Morocco on February 24. The quake razed buildings as far 10 miles away. Repeated aftershocks have continued to affect both the city itself and outlying villages in the surrounding mountains.

Nearly 200 people were reportedly killed in a massacre this past Saturday in a camp for displaced people 15 miles outside of Lira, northern Uganda, that was home to nearly 4,800 Ugandans.

Lira/New York, February 6, 2004 - A team from the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treated more than 60 wounded yesterday after an attack Wednesday on Abiya, a camp for displaced people near the northern Ugandan town of Lira, in which 51 people were killed. The injured civilians were brought to the hospital in Lira a day after the attack, after spending the night hiding in the surrounding area.

Kampala/New York, February 4, 2004 - Nearly 33,000 displaced people have sought refuge in Amuria, northern Uganda, since June 2003, according to the international medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The group has launched an emergency assistance program in the area to provide medical care and supply water to families and health structures. The health needs are pronounced. Many children suffer from severe malnutrition, and people were dying at twice the rate of what is considered an emergency threshold.

The decade-long conflict between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is far from over. In the past several months, the fighting has been much more violent and has spread to new areas of the country, particularly the northern towns of Soroti, Gulu, and Lira.

This Fall, tens of thousands of people sought refuge in the town of Soroti when the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacked villages in northeastern Uganda. Tonia Marquardt, MD, described the medical emergency, and how families have been torn apart, leaving many in anguish.