Kampala — AT least six people, mainly children, have died after eating poisonous cassava in Amuru and Gulu districts since the World Food Programme (WFP) stopped distributing relief food in the north.

The LC3 chairman of Atyak Sub-county, John Bosco Ochan, told Sunday Vision last week that two people: Oketta, 2, and the son of the LC1 general secretary of Parwaca-Pabwono village, Charles Rom, died shortly after eating bitter cassava tubers. John Onen, 56, also died after eating poisonous cassava.

"However, Madelena Layet of Kal West Parish in Atyak Sub-county was able to save the lives of her two children, Denis Opio and Kevin Ayek, by feeding them with salt as soon as they started vomiting," Ochan said.

Two other children, Ojok and Olyec, of Latoro Parish in Purongo Sub-county, Amuru District also died after eating the poisonous cassava.

In Gulu, two children died from Adak village in Lakwana Sub-county also died.

Ochan said the local leaders in Acholi region should ask the WFP to resume general food distribution to the people in the areas where the hitherto displaced people are in order to save the lives of children and elderly persons who are the most vulnerable.

"I which WFP could give us food to take us for about six months as we wait for what we planted to mature, we would not be suffering like this," one Sylvester Ojok of Gulu said