UGANDA: Northern Uganda, where 20,000 children have been kidnapped by rebels, is the scene of the world's biggest humanitarian crisis, according to a senior figure at the United Nations.
Mr Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, yesterday urged the international community to help end the 18-year conflict which has forced 1.6 million people from their homes.
"Where else in the world have there been 20,000 kidnapped children? Where else in the world have 90 per cent of the population in large districts been displaced? Where else in the world do children make up 80 per cent of the terrorist insurgency movement? For me, the situation is a moral outrage," he said in New York after briefing the UN Security Council on African issues.
In recent months Ugandan politicians have repeatedly claimed that troops were close to victory over the Lord's Resistance Army.
The shadowy rebel group is infamous for its atrocities against civilians and has kidnapped thousands of children, who are forced to serve as soldiers or as sex slaves.
Although a number of its senior commanders have been captured in recent weeks, the LRA is still able to draw on an estimated 2,000 troops.
Random attacks on villagers have forced people into squalid refugee camps for protection.
Residents rely on food brought by aid agencies and rates of HIV and AIDS are higher than elsewhere in Uganda.
The numbers displaced include about 40,000 "night commuters" - children who leave their rural homes every evening to sleep in bus shelters, schools and hospitals to avoid LRA attacks.
But Mr Francis Butagira, Uganda's ambassador to the UN, yesterday said that his government had gained the decisive upper hand. "We shall win the war and soon," he told the BBC.
"We don't need peacekeepers. We just want assistance as we wind up the rebel camps."
Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Britain's UN ambassador, speaking after the Security Council meeting, described Uganda as "one of the great crises out there which is not recognised enough".
He called on the international community to support the African Union's peace efforts and respond to UN appeals for donations, and added that the council planned to meet in Nairobi, Kenya, next month to discuss peace efforts in the region.
Meanwhile, Mr Egeland said good progress was being made in Sudan, where conflicts have displaced millions of civilians. "We're exceeding many of the goals we set ourselves two months ago," he said.