Northern Uganda: Assisting the Elderly

October 1st was the United Nations International Day of Older Persons, which this year called for a “Convention on the Rights of Older People.” In displacement situations, the elderly have particular needs that are often forgotten, which made me think back on my recent mission to Uganda.

My colleague, Melanie Teff, and I had a chance to speak with many elderly displaced people who are living in camps and transit sites in the north. While we were in northern Uganda, we conducted several day trips around Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts to meet with displaced people. Often when we would reach a displacement camp in the afternoon it was only the elderly and some mothers with their young children who were present, since most of the adults were out working in the fields and the majority of children were attending school.

After more than two decades of conflict in northern Uganda between the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda forces, there is now relative peace and stability in the north. Many of the more than 1.8 million people displaced by the conflict are taking steps towards returning home. But while many of the displaced people we met are starting to cultivate their land and rebuild huts destroyed by the fighting, basic services remain scarce, particularly water and access to education and health care.

Among the displaced population in northern Uganda, older people are particularly vulnerable since they are often not physically able to farm their land or to rebuild their homes. Also, although they may have been able to receive medical assistance in the camps, if they return to their home areas, it’s likely that the closest health center will be miles away. Many of the older people we met with were disabled as well and were dependent on the kindness of the other displaced people in the camp to help them with basic things like collecting food rations.

Almost all of the older persons we spoke with in the displacement camps wanted to return back home now, but they needed help to do so. In a previous post I detailed a conversation I had with Ojok, an 80-year-old Ugandan man who has been living in a displacement camp in Gulu for several years. [1] Ojok, like other elderly displaced people we met, still requires food assistance to be delivered in the camp, since he is unable to return home and farm his fields.

While the World Food Program does continue to assist vulnerable people like the elderly in most of the camps, there is also increasingly strong rhetoric coming from the Government of Uganda that the camps will be phased out and everyone must go home. The international community, particularly the UN Refugee Agency, must continue to push the Government of Uganda to adhere to its National Policy on Internally Displaced Persons and ensure that returns are voluntary, in safety and dignity. And for those elderly displaced people like Ojok who remain in the camps hoping to return home soon, basic services must continue while planning is done to help them return to their original lands.