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UGANDA: 'One million to test' campaign logs first victory

KAMPALA Thursday, November 27, 2008 (IRIN) - More than 1,000 people were recently tested for HIV at a busy marketplace in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, kicking off a nationwide drive that aims to help at least 20,000 people across the country know their status. Between 26 November and 1 December, World AIDS Day, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), US-based NGO, has set a goal of testing one million people around the world http://www.onemilliontests.org/index.html. AHF has formed...

UGANDA: Children quit school as aid dries up

GULU Tuesday, November 25, 2008 (IRIN) - Poor learning conditions and lack of food in primary schools have forced thousands of children out of class in northern Uganda over the past three months, local officials said. "The problem has been made worse as displaced primary schools relocate back to their original sites in villages when UN food aid support to primary schools has stopped," Robinson Obot, Gulu District education officer said. Some 11,123 children below 15 years of age, he said,...

UGANDA: Draft HIV bill's good intentions could backfire

KAMPALA Monday, November 24, 2008 (IRIN) - AIDS activists in Uganda have slammed a proposed new law that will force HIV-positive people to reveal their status to their sexual partners, and also allow medical personnel to reveal someone's status to their partner. The HIV Prevention and Control Bill (2008) is intended to provide a legal framework for the national response to HIV, as well as protect the rights of individuals affected by HIV. Activists agree that Uganda needs legislation to...

UGANDA: Post-traumatic stress rife in the north

GULU Thursday, October 23, 2008 (IRIN) - Sleepless nights, flashbacks and hallucinations have become normal for Michael Ocira, a former soldier in the rebel Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which has waged a civil war in the north for more than two decades. “When I imagine the days in the bush, I lose my senses and thoughts, only to be told later that I acted violently, grabbing hold of anything to [use to] beat anyone near me," Ocira told IRIN on 22 October in Gulu town, one of the...

RWANDA-UGANDA: Cross-continent truckers risk more than HIV

KATUNA Thursday, October 23, 2008 (IRIN) - Edward Oboth Ofumbi is glad his days as a long-distance truck driver are over; glad to have left a life filled with long, solitary journeys on some of Africa's worst roads, carrying valuable cargo on highways with minimal security. "Truckers are a frustrated bunch; the roads are horrible, they are worried about thugs who want their cargo, police who want bribes, and they have deadlines to meet which are threatened by long delays at customs points,"...

UGANDA: Displaced first by war, now by elephants

AMURU Friday, October 24, 2008 (IRIN) - Marauding elephants in northern Uganda have added to the challenges faced by civilians trying to rebuild their lives in the wake of 20 years of civil war, destroying their crops and prompting some to return to displaced people’s (IDP) camps they had only recently left. "The villagers are scared of the elephants; some of them have sought refuge in huts they had left in the [IDP] camps," John Bosco Okullo, a local leader in Amuru District told IRIN. Most...

DRC-UGANDA: Facilities overwhelmed as refugees stream to border

KAMPALA Friday, October 31, 2008 (IRIN) - Food, water, health and sanitation facilities at several villages on the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border are overstretched as civilians continue to pour into Uganda, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said on 31 October. The agency said the facilities were inadequate for the more than 6,500 people scattered in 12 villages along the border who are being hosted by the local communities. "It is very difficult for us to provide assistance to...

UGANDA: Drought, hunger drive Karamoja children to beg in Kampala

KAMPALA Monday, November 03, 2008 (IRIN) - Agatha Locham, 23, sits with her two weak and malnourished children a few steps from the entrance to a bank in Kampala. “Mpayo ekikumi [give me a 100-shilling coin]," the boy, his stomach distended, shouts at passers-by. Locham and her children are among the increasing number of residents of the drought-prone region of Karamoja, north-eastern Uganda, who have travelled hundreds of kilometres to the city to beg to survive. She said her malnourished...

UGANDA: Uganda Diaries (updated)

NAIROBI Monday, November 03, 2008 (IRIN) - Monica Atto "Things were difficult when I went back. Because I was a returnee my uncle expected that I’d had lots of help from NGOs and was wanting things from me" Dalson Oyo "We have a lady who cooks for the children in the school. The parents don’t have money so instead they will dig her garden for her" [Updated 4 August] Esther Lalam "Every year in November we would have a prayer for the ancestors. My sisters come all the way up from Jinja and...

UGANDA: Fuel shortage hits aid work in north

GULU Thursday, November 06, 2008 (IRIN) - Aid workers in northern Uganda could scale down operations if a fuel shortage persists, officials told IRIN. "Our operations for the past two weeks have been severely affected, we can't get all our staff to work locations because of the fuel shortage," Alex Otim, Gulu district local government secretary for works and rehabilitation, said. He said the shortage had affected the delivery of aid to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons...