UN to Solicit $130m for Kony Victims

New Vision (Kampala)
NEWS
November 11, 2003
Posted to the web November 11, 2003

By Vision Reporter
Kampala
THE United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan
Egeland, said yesterday that the UN would launch a $130m appeal for non-food
items for victims of the war in northern Uganda.
Egeland met Vice-President Prof. Gilbert Bukenya at his home in Lwantama,
Kakiri, in Wakiso where he pledged that the UN Office for Co-ordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) would do more to help people in northern Uganda.
"The situation is intolerable and we must all agree that this is totally
unacceptable. Northern Uganda is the most forgotten crisis in the world,"
Egeland said.
He said urgent issues that needed to be addressed in Northern Uganda were
access to humanitarian groups delivering aid and relief packages, and the
facilitation of peace efforts to end the war.
Egeland, flanked by UNDP Country Representative in Uganda, Daouda Toure, said
the LRA war was a "war against civilians, not the military".
He said the UN OCHA would open sub-offices in Kitgum, Gulu and Soroti
districts, in order to address the situation there more closely.
The international community should put much more pressure on Kony.
Some people look at Kony as a formal rebel with a political goal yet he has
none. Kony doesn't have an area under his control in Uganda, and he goes after
soft targets and uses children to fight," Bukenya said.
Bukenya said Uganda was open to any suggestion for ending the war against Kony.

   

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