Violence in Uganda – one of the poorest countries in the world – has been pervasive for almost two decades. The conflict between the government’s Uganda People’s Democratic Front (UPDF) and a rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been ongoing in northern Uganda for nineteen years. The LRA has abducted 20,000 children over that time.

Once supported by the local Acholi community of the north, the LRA started targeting civilians in the early 1990s because their declining support for the LRA was interpreted as collaboration with the Ugandan government. The war worsened and the humanitarian situation declined. Marketed as a ‘safety strategy’ carried out by the Government of Uganda (GoU), the camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) house 1.4 to 1.9 million Ugandans. The squalid and overcrowded camps are almost totally reliant on food aid from the UN World Food Program (WFP).”

Gulu, Uganda.

Also, check out articles in New America Media category: African