Uganda's daily rate of violent deaths is three times Iraq's, says report

The rate of violent deaths in war-ravaged northern Uganda is three times higher than in Iraq and the 20-year insurgency has cost $1.7bn (£980m), according to a report by 50 international and local agencies released today.

The violent death rate for northern Uganda is 146 deaths a week or 0.17 violent deaths per 10,000 people per day. This is three times higher than in Iraq, where the incidence of violent death was 0.052 per 10,000 people per day, says the report.

"The Ugandan government, the rebel army and the international community must fully acknowledge the true scale and horror of the situation in northern Uganda," said Kathy Relleen, a policy adviser to Oxfam, one of the organisations behind the report.

The report, by the Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda, puts the cost of the war in northern Uganda at $1.7bn over the past two decades. It says this is equivalent to the United States' total aid to Uganda between 1994 and 2002. "Twenty years of brutal violence is a scar on the world's conscience. The government of Uganda must act resolutely and without delay, both to guarantee the effective protection of civilians and to work with all sides to secure a just and lasting peace," said Ms Relleen.

The report is being released ahead of the arrival of the UN's humanitarian chief Jan Egeland in Uganda tomorrow. Mr Egeland will hold meetings with non-governmental organisations, ministers and Uganda-based UN officials before touring a camp in northern Uganda.

Almost two million people have been driven from their homes in the 20-year insurgency, and forced to live in government-controlled camps for their own protection. Rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army hold no territory but regularly abduct children, using the boys as soldiers and the girls as sex slaves. The report estimates that 25,000 children have been abducted during the war.

Kevin Fitzcharles, the director of Care International, said that Mr Egeland was pushing the Security Council to act, yet none of his recommendations were being implemented. "It is time for the Security Council to recognise that its failure to address this crisis... undermines its credibility. The UN must act by passing a resolution urging the government of Uganda to protect its own people."