Over 60,000 LRA war victims rehabilitated 

More than 60,000 war victims of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)  rebel activity have received support in a bid to recover from the wounds and scars caused during the two-decade insurgency in northern Uganda.
Mr Scott Bartell, an official from Trust Fund for Victims, who was part of a joint monitoring delegation in northern Uganda last week, made the revelation on Saturday during a press briefing in Kampala.

“We have been providing surgery support to those who were injured during the war. Even up to today, some victims come to us with bullets still stuck in their bodies after 18 years. So we are providing counsel after trauma, among other recovery services,” Mr Scott said.
“For the last 14 years that we have been providing the recovery support, we have so far supported 60,000 war victims,” he added.

The LRA led by Joseph Kony in 1986, started a rebellion against the current regime mostly in the northern part of the country, with the United Nations (UN) estimating that 100,000 people died in the war. The UN estimated that more than 2.5 million people were internally displaced.

Mr Scott said the Trust Fund for Victims intervened in 2008 and offered assistance including medical and psychological rehabilitation as well as livelihood support in 22 districts.
Mr Brendan Rogers, the ambassador of Ireland to the Netherlands, said the organisation saved a woman whose leg was blown off after stepping on a land mine.
“But with the help of the Trust Fund, she has since been rehabilitated and she is into farming and business and has hope to live,” he said.
The chair of the Trust Fund for Victims, Ms Minou Tavarez Mirabal, said medical treatment, trauma counselling and livelihood support are life changing services.

“The Trust Fund for Victims calls for collective efforts to restore hope, transforming lives and achieving long-term reparative justice for victims,” she said.
The core objective of the monitoring visit was to provide officials with an opportunity to witness the transformative work in northern Uganda.
The delegation also hoped to gain insight into reparation implementation programmes and listen to victims’ experiences of the court-ordered reparation programme in other similar court cases such as Lubanga and Katanga in DR Congo.

Last year, while sentencing Dominic Ongwen, one of the top commanders of Joseph Kony, to 25 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of committing atrocities in northern Uganda, the court issued an order for submissions on reparations.
It emphasised that the right of victims to reparations is also an essential part of the system of justice, and stated that it would push forward the reparation stage of the proceedings with vigour and the utmost care.