James Eriku
13 November 2009
Residents currently leaving internally displaced people's camps for their original villages should desist from abandoning disabled relatives, Pader Resident District Commissioner has said.
Mr Santos Okot Lapolo said he has received complaints from local leaders, that the disabled, the elderly and orphans have been abandoned in former camps without any care. "There is no way a cultured person should abandon a relative in the camp without any care, you moved them to the camps, and therefore you have to resettle them in the homes," Mr Lapolo said. He made the appeal during a recent meeting with residents of Kalongo Town Council while officiating at the decommissioning ceremony of four IDP camps.
Mr Lapolo said the practice of neglecting the vulnerable people is not only a taboo in Acholi culture but socially unacceptable in the community. His remark follows an outcry from the LC3 Chairman of Kalongo Town council, Mr John Okello, that several elderly persons have since died in the area due to lack of care by their relatives who had returned to their villages. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in collaboration with other partners are facilitating the IDP camp phase-out in Acholi sub region.
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