Uganda seeks food aid

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 11

Uganda seeks food aid

NZPA-AP Kampala The Ugandan Government is seeking emergency food from the United Nations for 750,000 people starving in northwestern Uganda, a senior official said yesterday. Deogratius Rwabita, Deputy Minister for Relief and Social Rehabilitation, said representatives in Uganda of two United Nations agencies, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, were awaiting instructions from their Rome headquarters.

"The little available food is extremely expensive and the local people cannot afford the exorbitant prices,” Mr Rwabita said.

He identified the areas affected by the famine as Arua and West Moyo districts, 500 km north-west of Uganda's capital, Kampala, and near Uganda’s borders with Zaire and Sudan.

mangoes, water lilies, and wild yams. Mr Rwabita attributed the famine to a cassava disease that recently destroyed the tuberous crop and to swarms of grasshoppers that invaded the fields, destroying crops planted during heavy rains from August to November. A prolonged drought since January has aggravated the situation. Also compounding the problem, Mr Rwabita said, was the return last year of 330,000 Ugandan refugees from Zaire and Sudan.

Mr Rwabita said traders feared entering the area because travellers on the only road to the rest of the country were regularly attacked by rebels fighting to topple President Yoweri Museveni’s Government. Mr Rwabita said the Government recently sent 70 tonnes of corn and beans to the people, who were mainly living on