Pain And Agony in IDP Camps The Monitor (Kampala) ANALYSIS November 15, 2003 Posted to the web November 17, 2003 By Joseph Olanyo Kampala She went to look for food, but she never came back. She was abducted, tortured and brutally murdered by her captors, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. Joyce Amongin 33, a mother of three, was killed in cold blood last week while on her way to pick some cassava from her abandoned garden in Acowa sub-county, Katakwi district. Five-months pregnant, Amongin was stabbed several times in the head and in the back with a bayonet. Her naked, decomposing body bore five stab wounds in the head, four on the skull and one deep wound near the right ear lobe. The deceased's swollen neck bore bruises inflicted by a blunt object. Amongin's ordeal began on the morning of October 31, 2003, when she and her co-wife, Jessica Aguti, 37, sneaked out of the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) camp in Acowa to go and look for food. Inspite of insecurity in the area, they braved the scorching sun and travelled to their home in Asinge village, 16 kms away from the camp. It is said that for three consecutive days, the two and their nine siblings had not eaten food. There was nothing to eat, and the situation had run out of control. They had earlier asked their husband, Mr Vincent Ongole, 35, an Arrow Group section commander, to seek permission so he could escort them to their village. But in light of 'standing orders' he could not be allowed to accompany them. That sealed Amongin's fate. She is one of the many case of people who have lost their lives at the hands of marauding LRA rebels. They have abducted, killed, and displaced thousands of people in the Teso sub-region. Her co-wife, Aguti, who survived by a whisker after escaping, recounted what had transpired in the bush. "We were walking, when suddenly two rebels jumped into the road. Two behind and two infront. 'Cungi cungi (stop stop)' they ordered us. We were terrified," she said. "They removed all our clothes and led us to the bush where we were made to sit down. They asked us whether we were married to soldiers. They also wanted to know the number of soldiers in the camps. We said we were not wives of soldiers." Aguti recalls how the deceased was first hit with the nozzle of the gun and she fell face down. "You know she was pregnant, but she was hit so hard with the gun that she fainted," she said as she struggled to hold back tears that were by now welling up in her eyes. Aguti managed to escape when an army chopper and the ground soldiers engaged the rebels. "When they saw the chopper, they told all of us to hide. That is when I managed to escape. My colleague couldn't. She was killed. She was killed in the cruellest manner. Her death has been haunting me since and I don't know how I will get out of it," Aguti said as she broke down in tears. The night of June 15, 2003 will never be erased out of people's minds - in Katakwi district. It marked the LRA incursion into the region. One old man, Ezekiel Opiro, from Obalanga sub-county, from where the rebels entered the district, recalls how the information about the LRA attack filtered into the area but was ignored by the residents. "We got information about the impending attack, but people ignored it. Nobody, including me could believe it. Two weeks later, they attacked Obalanga," Opiro, in his late 60s said. "They came as friends, but they turned out to be the worst enemies on earth." Speaking with bits of spittle escaping from the corner of his mouth, the white haired father of nine, is one among thousands of people camped in Acowa sub- county headquarters. Opiro recalls how the rebels shared drinks and played football with the locals of the area before they began abducting young children under the age of 12. Acowa IDP camp, is one of the biggest camps in Katakwi district with a population of about 30,000 IDPs. Other camps are in Amuria trading centre, Orungo and Morungatuny sub-counties respectively. With poor sanitation and lack of drugs, residents have suffered starvation and death, sparking off relentless pain and tears. The LC III chairman Acowa sub-county, Mr Joseph Okwi, said between four to five people, mostly children, die in the camp daily. "Our biggest problems here are insecurity, lack of water, drugs and poor sanitation. But the biggest problem is water," he said. With barely one borehole within reach, most IDPs have to rely on unprotected water sources, which include dams and tadpole-infested streams. Statistics from the camps indicate that 99 percent of the deaths are due to diarrhoea. Since June this year, over 100 people have died in Acowa camp alone. Malaria, measles and pneumonia have also dealt a blow on the IDPs. Every other day, IDP residents wake up to the sounds of wailing from bereaved families. In most cases the bodies are buried within the camps, while in other cases, soldiers escort the bodies for burial in the nearby villages. Carrying dead bodies to bury is the order of the day in the camps. Elizabeth Ariyo, 21, is one of the widows in Asamuk camp whose husband, Mr Lawrence Epudu fell prey to the ruthless rebels. Epudu, a former LC III chairman of Asamuk sub-county in Katakwi, was shot at point blank range in the presence of his wife. Ms Ariyo, cuddling her four months old baby, narrated how the rebels invaded their home in the wee hours of the night. "They stripped us naked. I was ordered to sit next to my husband's body. He had died and was still bleeding," said Ariyo, who was nine months pregnant. She recalls that a female rebel, carrying a kid on her back, saved her. "He pointed a knife at my stomach, but a woman soldier raised her hand and pleaded with the rebel not to kill me. It was terrifying," Ariyo said, her hands trembling with fear. "Then they started kicking my husband's body, one by one, as they left". Life in the IDP camps is full of misery, pain and agony. The IDPs are wallowing in abject poverty and disease. Unhappy faces are the commonest sight - across the camps. Mothers carrying malnourished children on their laps sit in small groups contemplating their next move. In one hut, a little boy wore a tattered vest that barely reached his navel. His thin legs struck out of his bloated belly like spindles. He could neither stand nor talk. He just lay there on the dusty floor, his eyes rolling deep inside their sockets. But life has to continue. His mother, Ms Grace Apolot said her son has been bed ridden for over one-month. The World Food Programme (WFP) is currently providing relief food to the districts in the region. Three NGOs, Action Aid, Christian Children's Fund and the Red Cross are distributing food in the districts of Katakwi, Soroti, and Kaberamaido. Action Aid, which covers Katakwi, has distributed tonnes of relief food in the area for the last one month. However, the relief effort is like a drop in the ocean in light of the catastrophe. Last week, it supplied beans and maize to Acowa sub-county camp. But the food was not enough for the IDPs whose number is ever increasing. To compound the problem, insecurity hampers the distribution of relief food. Action Aid volunteers say they sometimes have to spend between three to four days in an area to distribute food. Teso sub-region, which was steadily recovering from the traumatic effects of the Uganda People's Army (UPA) insurgency in the late 1980s, has again become a region where hope is in short supply. As humanitarian aid trickles into the region, the future of more than 150,000 IDPs in Katakwi district lies in balance.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2003 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================