Taking final steps to lasting peace in Uganda not easy, says priest

Published: 2008-01-08

KITGUM, Uganda (CNS) -- Corrina Akongo has harvested sweet potatoes from her own land for the first time in years. After more than a decade of living in a crowded camp for internally displaced persons, surviving on food donated by the international community, she came home to her ancestral village of Amuca in April just in time to plant. As the new year began, she harvested grass for the roof of a new thatched hut and dug her sweet potatoes from the ground. "It seems like forever that we've been waiting for peace," she said. "I couldn't wait to get back home and start my life again." After more than two decades of violence, the people of northern Uganda are enjoying a respite from the bloody conflict between the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government. Peace talks that began in 2006 in Juba, Sudan, have progressed slowly but steadily, and a small number of the almost 2 million internally displaced people have returned to their ancestral villages. Father Matthew Ojara, pastor of Christ the King Parish in Kitgum, said the lull in fighting has allowed some people to restart their lives.

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