Uganda: More Than 1,000 Ugandans Die From Diseases Each Week in Camps for Homeless People

According to a report by the Ugandan government, various UN agencies, Britain, and the International Rescue Committee, more than 1,000 Ugandans die each week in refugee camps created because of an 18-year insurgency in the northern part of the country. Between January and July, 28,283 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, malaria, fever and other diseases, and violence in the camps that hold about 1.3 million Ugandans, the report said. Most of the deaths were from disease, and 11,068 were children under age five, it noted. Another 300,000 displaced people who live outside the camps were not included in the report. The rebel Lord's Resistance Army, which is continuing an uprising in the north started by a different rebel group in 1987, has abducted thousands of children and turned the boys into child soldiers and the girls into sex slaves.

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