The LRA and the IDP Camps

We had our first visit to the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps two days ago. It was a very sobering experience. First of all, you need to understand why the IDP camps were created in the first place. They have been around for about 20 years and they were formed to protect people from the brutal violence of the Lord's Resistance Army that has been attacking the people of northern Uganda for that time. If you would like a brief review of the LRA please see this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army

Here are a few pictures.


We asked an orphan girl that Working to Empower is sponsoring in school to draw a picture of her family's home in the IDP camp. This is what she drew.

Last year 900 people in the Agoro IDP camp died from a Cholera outbreak. It was because their latrines drain into the same area they were getting their drinking water from. This is picture of the stream that goes through the camp. The dirty pigs were everywhere.

This is Logan, the director of the project in Uganda. This was during our trip to the Agoro IDP cam. The mountains in the background are in Sudan.

This is a sign that is posted many places around the area. It is estimated that 400 people are killed each year by landmines placed by the LRA.

Here are a couple of kids helping their mom in the garden in the huts surrounding the IDP camps.

When we were visiting the IDP camps it started to rain. I was invited into one of the huts and I took this picture out the door. Whole families of 7 or more people will sleep on the floor of these huts. There is absolute poverty here. There are hungry/starving kids and Logan took a picture of a kid eating a rat (maybe I will post later).

Now I am out of time. I am working over 10+ hours a day, but I will post when I can.