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> June 2008
June 5, 2008: Refugees and displaced people in Burundi and Uganda who seek to return home are likely to face disputes, tension, and even conflict over land, according to survivor advocates in the two countries.
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June 2008
AP and Survivor Corps launched the program in June 2008 with a news bulletin that drew from interviews with advocates in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
June 5, 2008: The Washington-based Survivor Corps has launched an ambitious program in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to help survivors of conflict to work together, improve their lives, launch campaigns for social justice, and eradicate the root causes of conflict.
June 15, 2008: Three Ugandan civil society leaders expressed strong support for the new Survivor Corps program in Africa during a recent visit to the United States and called on the international community not to give up on the Juba Peace Process.
June 5, 2008: (IRIN News). Landmine survivors in Africa have welcomed the adoption of a new international treaty to ban cluster bombs.
June 5, 2008: A leading refugee organization in Uganda has disputed claims by the government of Uganda that internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the north are returning en masse to their former homes, and warned that many IDP settlements risk becoming “permanent.”
June 5, 2008: Former child soldiers are proving to be highly effective peer support counselors for other traumatized children who were also abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda and are now struggling to rejoin their communities.
June 5, 2008: As Northern Uganda begins to rebuild from more than two decades of conflict, persons with disabilities risk being left out of the process, according to advocates for the disabled in Gulu.
June 5, 2008: During the 1990s, as the war in Northern Uganda escalated, government forces forced the inhabitants of Gulu to shut their offices and watch while rebels were publicly executed by a firing squad. Those who refused to watch were labeled as rebel collaborators.
June 5, 2008: When Assumpta Umurungi and Odette Kayirere were struggling to recover from the loss of family members during Rwandan genocide in 1994, they received a visit from survivors of the Holocaust. The Jewish delegation told them to put aside bitterness and anger, and draw comfort from helping others.
June 5, 2008: The 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which killed a tenth of the country's population, left about half its children orphaned. Many of the rest were manipulated into taking part in the violence. The result has been a huge pool of discontented and embittered young people who are vulnerable to crime, or are targeted for future ethnic violence by Hutu extremists.
June 5, 2008: "In Burundi, every person can be considered a survivor of conflict," says Adrien Niyongabo of the Friends Peace Team in Bujumbura, a Quaker initiative.
June 5, 2008: (Bujumbura, IRIN). Lost in their thoughts, the women sit patiently on benches as they wait for assistance at the offices of the League Iteka, a Burundian human rights group. Survivor Corps met with Iteka officials during the recent mission.
June 5, 2008: Studio Ijambo uses the power of radio to reach out to Burundians and make the case that peace will only come about if survivors – including political prisoners, orphans, street children, widows and demobilized soldiers – can be reintegrated into society.
June 5, 2008: Advocates for survivors in Burundi have urged the government to speed up the establishment a Truth Commission that would shed light on 15 years of violence, identify those responsible, and end the climate of impunity that allows political violence to go unchecked.
June 5, 2008: Refugees and displaced people in Burundi and Uganda who seek to return home are likely to face disputes, tension, and even conflict over land, according to survivor advocates in the two countries.