Pete Muller Photography

Northern Uganda: After the Storm

For twenty years, the Acholi tribe of northern Uganda endured a savage and underreported civil war. Thousands perished as government forces battled the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a notoriously brutal and elusive rebel movement. As fighting intensified, millions of civilians fled their homes and took refuge in overcrowded camps. Ambushes, mutilations, forced displacement, child abductions and endemic disease defined life in the region. With scant political significance, the outside world felt little pressure to intervene.

In 2006, warring factions signed an agreement which ushered in an unprecedented period of calm. The LRA retreated to neighboring Congo and the Ugandan army redeployed to border regions. For the first time in two decades, the people of northern Uganda enjoy basic levels of security.

In 2008, when these photos were taken, the Acholi people were cautiously optimistic. "We are now free to move whenever we want to," a young Acholi man says. "Everyone used to fear the night," he adds, noting the LRA's preference to attack after dark. With confidence in security on the rise, the formerly besieged town of Gulu bustles with life. Motorcycle taxis speed through crowded streets and nightclubs blast dated pop music into the wee hours.

Despite these gains, the war's enduring consequences are overwhelming. Tales of personal suffering abound, often recounted in thinly veiled tones of trauma. Hundreds of thousands remain in displacement camps, fearful that LRA rebels might someday return. Alcoholism among men is rampant and commonly considered a byproduct of the war and its psychological impact. Women endure their wounds quietly, sequestered in homes and kitchens, often intimidated into silence. Poverty and underdevelopment define the landscape.

While many believe the conflict involving the LRA to be at a genuine end, others maintain that a new Acholi rebel movement is afoot. The legitimate political grievances that gave rise to historic waves of Acholi resistance movements, including the LRA, remain unresolved. The Acholi sub-region continues to endure unique underdevelopment and insufficient federal assistance from the central government in Kampala.

"We just do not get our fair share of the national cake," a young Acholi man laments. "Whenever people feel that they're being cheated, you are going to have problems." Uganda's fertile north produces much of the country's agricultural wealth. Despite this fact, the regional poverty and development indicators are among the lowest in the country.

While LRA involvement in northern Uganda may be thing of the past, a peaceful future for the region is far from secure. As long the Acholi suffer discrimination at the hands of the central government, resistance movements will persist.

A woman passes through Gulu's market district. As northern Uganda emerges from twenty years of war and humanitarian emergency, it now faces tremendous developmental challenges.
  
She crawled from a grass-thatch hut on her hands and knees, her bare chest exposed. Several months before, a severe fall left her with two dislocated hips, rendering her immobile. Without any family to help her, she is forced to crawl 100 meters to reach a source of water. As many depart the Bobe Internally Displaced Persons camp for their native lands, her condition forces her to remain. Many Acholi express deep concern over new trends regarding the treatment of the elderly. "It never used to be this way," a local council member explains. "During the war people became hardened, they forgot the traditions of caring for others and only protected themselves." Elderly people who lost family are often left to beg and fend for themselves.
  
Federally appropriated local militias disembark to patrol the Ugandan border with South Sudan. Following the signing of an agreement in 2006, many Ugandan military units redeployed to remote regions along the Sudanese and Congolese borders.
     
  
Heavy rains approach Ngomoromo trading center near the border with Sudan.
  
Molly, 20, and her son Fahim, 3, inside their home in Gulu's industrial area. Prior to the outbreak of war, the area was uninhabited. Thousands took refuge in the area as fighting raged throughout the countryside. Molly and Fahim await assurances that the war is over before moving to their native lands.
  
A driving factor of conflict in northern Uganda is the lack of resource allocation to the region. Population centers in the Acholi north lack much of the infrastructure present in other parts of the country. Here, people navigate the dark streets of Gulu, the region’s largest town, illuminated only by occasional passing cars.
     
  
Two girls pose in Gulu's Cerileno neighborhood.
  
The lull in fighting since 2006 has allowed Gulu residents to move and socialize without fear of violence. During the war, few people moved after dusk and the highly militarized environment seriously impacted local economy and commerce. Today, residents frequent an array of shops, bars, eateries and markets. Here, people hang around outside the Corner Cafe, a local watering hole and restaurant.
   
After a two-year hiatus in a twenty-two year civil war, many of northern Uganda’s Internally Displaced Persons departed overcrowded camps for their native lands. In April 2008, this family returned to their remote, formerly vulnerable lands in Palenga, approximately 20 km from Gulu town.
     
  
A young woman in Gulu's deeply impoverished Cerileno neighborhood. Despite improvements in recent years, Cerileno’s reputation for prostitution, drug trade and other illegal activities persists.
   
He sits alone in a grass-thatched hut. His voice is raspy and faint, making speech a less preferred medium. He survived the full length of northern Uganda’s brutal civil war, moving frequently to avoid heavy fighting. His family grew considerably as a result of the conflict when his daughter adopted nearly ten orphaned children.
  
Monthly food distributions by the United Nations World Food Program provide Ugandan IDPs with basic nourishment. When distributors arrive, thousands of camp residents converge to unload foodstuffs and subsequently receive their ration. Here, sacks of corn stacked in front of lorries in the Olwal IDP camp, which houses 11,000 people.
     
  
A local militia soldier drinks from a stream during a 45 km patrol through the Aroro hills.
  
Christine lives in a return site in Uganda's arid north. Dust cyclones are frequent, sending superstitious children dashing behind grass thatched huts. Her husband, Richard, had his fingers severed by LRA rebels shortly before he was murdered in 2006. Her three children depend on her for everything, which she cannot provide. Their lives are among the most difficult I’ve encountered.
  
A local militia solider patrols the mountains along the Uganda-Sudan border.
     
  
Women walk past empty market stalls as an afternoon storm approaches.
  
Young boys fight for room in the frame at the Pabbo IDP camp. Pabbo remains home to more than 20,000 Internally Displaced Persons.