Government relocates more landslide victims

Government has started the relocation of more landslide victims in Bugisu sub-region to Bunambutye resettlement site in Bunambutye Sub-county, Bulambuli District.
By Thursday, more than 50 families from the two districts of Namisindwa and Bududa had been relocated and resettled at the resettlement camp by the officials of Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).
The families are part of the 140, which are supposed to be relocated in this second phase of the project to occupy the completed 140 houses at the site.
In the first phase, 101 houses were constructed and about 720 people were relocated and resettled at the site.

The houses are being constructed by the Uganda People’s Defence Forces Engineering Brigade, the Police Construction Unit and the Uganda Prisons.
The government targets to construct about 900 houses on 2,800 acres of land, which the government acquired in 2013 to resettle about 7,200 people out of the 10,000 people living in landslide-prone areas in Mt Elgon Sub-region.
The beneficiary districts, all found in Bugisu sub-region, include Bududa, Namisindwa, Manafwa, Sironko, and Bulambuli.

“The government is committed to ensuring that all people living in landslide-prone areas are relocated and resettled to a safer place so that we don’t lose more lives when such disasters occur,” Ms Pamela Komujuni Kalule, the senior disaster management officer in the OPM, told Saturday Monitor early in the week.
Ms Komujuni explained that the government has already set up a health centre and other social amenities at the resettlement site.
“The victims will be supported to settle by the government until a point when they will be able to support themselves,” she said, adding that government will also meet school requirements for the children of the resettled victims for sometime.
Each resettled household at the camp is given a two-bedroom house, sitting on an acre of land, with another two acres for agriculture.

The OPM officials said government will provide food to the families for a year, which is long enough for them to grow and harvest their own food.
Ms Annet Gimono, one of the victims, who lost two of her relatives in the recent landslide in Bushika Sub-county, said she was happy that the government had finally relocated her and family to a safe place out of the danger posed by landslides.

Background
Disaster. The landslide disasters have been recurring in Bugisu Sub-region since 2010 when the disaster struck Nametsi Village in Bukalasi Sub-county in Bududa District.
Deaths. More than 300 people were reportedly killed and more than 5,000 people were displaced.
This newspaper’s investigations reveals that since 2010, at least 1,000 people have been killed by landslides in the sub-region.
Out of that 1,000 deaths, 70 per cent of deaths were registered in Bududa district.

[email protected]