Some believe an idea to relocate people at risk may result in fraud and bloodshed, writes JODY CLARKEin Nairobi
ABOUT HALF a million people will be moved from their homes in mountainous regions of Uganda, a government minister said on Monday, as the country looks to prevent further deaths from mudslides.
“The total population at risk of landslides and floods is estimated to be 500,000,” state minister for disaster preparedness Musa Ecweru told reporters.
“We plan to resettle the population from these very high-risk locations, once emergency operations of the current situation end.”
Last week, mudslides caused by torrential rain swamped local villages near Mount Elgon in the east of the country, leaving at least 83 dead. Another 300 are still missing as rescue efforts to find bodies trapped underneath mud and heavy stones continue.
The United Nations, which has begun the distribution of plastic sheeting, blankets and food aid in the region, says that 20,000 households may have been affected by the disaster.
According to Mr Ecweru, the government plans to relocate 300,000 people living around Mount Elgon and another 200,000 living in the Ruwenzori mountains in western Uganda. If they did not, he warned, there was likely to be a repeat of the current disaster.
However, some groups have already questioned the plans as unrealistic, given how densely populated the country already is. Although the idea of moving people is good in theory, “the million question is: relocate them to where?” said Tumusiime Deo, a spokesman for the Uganda Land Alliance (ULA), a Kampala-based NGO.
Previous relocations in Uganda were marred by fraud, he said, while, “any rushed attempt to relocate such a big number of people could cause an enormous crisis that could erupt into bloodshed.”
At current rates, Uganda will be the world’s 12th most populous country in the world by 2050, with 130 million people in an area about half that of Spain. Many of them are forced to find land in mountainous regions, where they remove trees to farm previously uncultivated slopes.
This, says Uganda’s Wildlife Authority, was one of the main reasons behind the recent mudslides. They claim that the removal of vegetation cover allowed for increased soil erosion, while also exposing the slopes to running water. By 1990, all agricultural encroachment around Mount Elgon National Park had stopped, but, by the late 1990s, it began again as local politicians stoked up a belief in the community that they had claims to the land inside the park.