Kyangwali Refugee Camp

This week we had the opportunity to travel with Elder and Sister Stevens, humanitarian missionaries, to northwest Uganda to distribute supplies to refugees who are fleeing across the border from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) due to civil war in their own country.  They arrive with nothing except the clothes on their back.  Over 33,000 have fled over the last several years and are being settled on land that the United Nations controls along the border near Lake Albert.  We had a native driver, Ssimbwa, who often travels with the Stevens as he knows all the back roads and trails throughout the country.  He also owns a company called the Iron Rod which helps buy local emergency supplies when the Church needs them for situations such as this.  We went to distribute mosquito nets, blankets, clothing, hoes, fast growing seeds for vegetable greens, jerry cans for carrying water, and cooking pots.

 

 

Baboon crossing the road on the way to refugee camp 

 

Now these are real "Long Horn Cattle" 

 

African village

 

Mud hut

 

 

The Church Financed Water Project

 

Main pump control--solar powered

 

Little boy, maybe 4, carrying a jerry can of water that he took from church water supply

back to his hut 

 

Guards watching TV in storage room filled with LDS refugee supplies

 

 

Congolese Refugees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elder and Sister Stevens and the Minister of State for Relief,

Honorable

 Musa Ecweru,

giving blankets to the refugees

 

 

 

 

 

Distributing blankets at St. Patrick's School

 for Orphans and HIV Children

 

 

 

 

Displaced Ugandans

Over the years, 20,000 Ugandans had moved onto the land owned by the UN.  They were recently evicted prior to the arrival of the Congolese refugees and now a displaced people living in worse conditions than the refugees.

 

 

 

 

A natural beauty

 

She could be mine

 

The Village Chief

The best photo I have taken

 

 

In closing we have to say that regardless of their situation and the fact that they have nothing, you notice how many still have a big smile and appear happy.  This was a choice experience for us...heart breaking, but so rewarding.