KARAMOJA: National Unity Platform (NUP) political party head Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu a.k.a Bobi Wine has on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, kick-started a campaign to extend food relief to people of Karamoja. The 2500kgs of maize flour (Posho) and 2500kgs of beans will be distributed to several families who are facing a food crisis.
“Today we kick-started efforts to extend food relief to the people of Karamoja who are starving to death. The regime’s priority has always been its own survival and not the welfare of our people. At a time like this, let each of us do the little we can to save lives,” Kyagulanyi wrote on Twitter.
NUP’s rescue mission comes after media reports shed light on the severe starvation crisis in Karamoja. Over 50 people are said to have succumbed to starvation in the Karamoja region of Uganda, with many residents now eating grass to survive.
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Addressing media, Napak District Woman Representative, Faith Nakut said some of the people are starving to death because they do not have food. “By July 8 we had registered 46 deaths to starvation with 2,181 households waiting to die over the same due to the dire state of famine that is ravaging the Karamoja sub region,” she added.
Kyagulanyi’s efforts in this case are to provide assistance to fellow Ugandans living in the Karamoja region who are starving to near death.
The National Unity Plaform wrote on Twitter saying even during times of crisis, the regime has maintained a deafening silence and has put the welfare of the populace last in favor of enriching itself with the natural resources of the Karamoja region.
“This is simply another proof that Ugandans are totally on their own. There is every cause to continue the fight until we the people are liberated from humiliation,” wrote NUP on Twitter.
Despite these accusations, Government has injected UGX135 billion to avert the hunger crisis in Karamoja sub-region in the next three months.
Prime Minister, Robinah Nabbanja in Parliament during a plenary sitting on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, said the Cabinet on Monday decided to release funds that will also cater to the purchase of seedlings for the planting season.
Nabbanja also said that recently, the Government distributed over 200 metric tons of food supplies to the Karamojong in a bid to stabilize the region troubled by protracted insecurity.
The Napak District Woman Representative, Faith Nakut also observed that while the government has over time intervened to save the population stricken by food scarcity, the food ratios being supplied are not reasonable to sustain the affected households even for a week.
Nakut emphasized that bad weather has continued to fail farmers worsening the food insecurity situation and threatening the lives and livelihoods of thousands of the population in the region.
Francis Adome, the Moroto Municipality MP said the proposal to provide food to starving Ugandans is not sustainable and very expensive and implored the Government to devise a participatory approach to address the food looming food crisis in the wake of escalating commodity prices in the country.
Oyam District Woman MP Santa Alum said the Lango sub-region has not been spared by the famine. She implored the Office of the Prime Minister to supply the region with food to address the crisis in the short term.
