Today's New Vision reports that two additional IDP camps are slated to begin construction in Lira district to relieve congestion in the two biggest existing camps in Aromo and Alimi. The new camps, to be called Ogwete and Walela, are likely a response to the recent upsurge in international concern about the humanitarian disaster in northern Uganda after a report revealed over 1,000 people die a week in the camps from disease, starvation, and violence.

Uganda-CAN urges the government of Uganda to pursue all possible means to completely dismantle the camps and assist IDPs in safely returning to their land.

ReliefWeb reports that LRA activity has caused the displacement of 41,000 people in Adjumani district, which lies to the west of Gulu district. A recently released report discovered that increased LRA activity in the past 18 months caused people of western Adjumani, mostly agriculturalists, to flee their homes. Many are living with friends and family, others in IDP camps. Most of the displaced persons have been unable to find employment or obtain access to tillable land.

AllAfrica published today an article from northern Uganda, where school children from Kampala traveled north to meet their peers in war-torn northern Uganda, who are currently confined to camps for the displaced. The kids visited Bobi camp in Gulu district.

The author comments on the drastic differences in lifestyle and education that met the children as they traveled north.

"Despite their destitution, the children in Bobi Internally Displaced People's (IDP) camp, Gulu, edge forward to shake hands with the visitors. As each child, in dirty tattered clothes, shoves their hand forward, the contrast is sharp, painfully so...

Statistics show that Northern Uganda has the lowest school enrolment rate in Uganda, yet its school drop out rate is three times that of the rest of the country... Hundreds of thousands of children don't get the opportunity to start school despite Universal Primary Education (UPE), which is a success in other parts of Uganda."

A secondary school headmaster told the children that a loss of HOPE was the primary reason school enrollment was so low. The article reports, "Churchill Lacere Olanya, the head master of Pabbo Secondary School, says hope is the biggest determinant of whether parents send their children to school or not. Many parents, Lacere says, think the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency may never end."

Uganda's Daily Monitor reports that the World Food Program has donated five tractors and 50 grinding mills to several camps for the displaced in Gulu district.

The supplies are to be used to cultivate land surrounding the camps, the article reports. Conditions of poor sanitation and a lack of food have led to high mortality rates in the area. The World Health Organization recently reported that more than 1000 excess deaths per week were taking place due to conditions in the camps. An average of 10-15 suicides are also reported weekly.

The Forum for Democratic Change, the counry's leading opposition party, recently called for disbanding the camps, noting that their living conditions amount to a "slow genocide."

The Daily Monitor reports today that the Government of Uganda will challenge the report put out last week that revealed up to 1,000 people die each week from disease and hunger in IDP camps. The report was compiled by the World Health Organization, UN Children's Fund, World Food Programme, UN Population Fund, International Rescue Committee and the UK Department for International Development. The Minister of State for Northern Uganda Reconstruction, Honorable Grace Akello, told the Daily Monitor that the survey did not represent the whole of northern Uganda.