A final peace agreement between Uganda’s government and the rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) could be just around the corner, ending twenty years of war in the country’s north. Arms were laid down and peace negotiations have been going on for several months. So far, the conflict has displaced close to two million people, many of whom are hesitant to return to their villages, deserted several years ago.

At the Awere camp, a few hours’ drive from the regional capital Gulu, at least 2000 refugees are crammed together on a small patch of land. Before the war, families lived hundreds of metres away from each other and agriculture was their main source of income. Yet, today, promiscuity and dependency on outside aid are a source of daily concern for the camp’s dwellers.

A mother of five, Grace Nyeko strives to keep her offspring close to the family hut, and doesn’t shy away from scaring them a little. “I tell them that if they go too far away from the hut, wicked people could poison them,” she explains. The camp’s managers say the rate of sexual violence is very high, as is often the case in a refugee camp.

Aid to return home
 
Food has been getting scarcer since the ceasefire was declared several months ago. Humanitarian aid agencies, who feel the situation is improving, are slowly withdrawing from the region. “I like the UN’s World Food Programme, but it’s not enough”, complains 25-year-old Lucy Acan, a monitor at Awere camp. “It’s not enough for us because there are many children and old people here. Even if there is no peace agreement, we can go home,” Acan says.

But a lack of basic necessities is making it hard for people to return home, says Cons Okech Layel, also a counsellor at the Awere camp. “People want to return to their villages, but there is not enough water,” required for agriculture, but also to build the region’s traditional mud huts. 
 
A generation raised in the camps

Alfred and Grace Nyeko were fortunate. An NGO helped dig two new wells in their village, and they are now preparing to return home with their children. During the war, the army always forbade them from returning to their land, saying it was unsafe.
 
In a country where one in two people are under the age of 15, an entire generation has been raised in the camps. Nyeko’s 13-year-old daughter Harriet remembers very little of her village before the war. During her school vacation, she accompanies her parents to the fields, where she helps her mother gather the first sesame harvest. Her father, Alfred, has already rebuilt three huts for the family. The only thing missing is a roof.

Alfred Nyeko, a former village chief, is making every effort to see his family established once again in the village of his ancestors. While he no longer fears the war, he is worried about its aftermath. LRA’s violent combat during the past twenty years has left its mark on peoples’ conscience and behaviour. “There are several armed men in the area. They are not rebels. They are mostly thieves and bandits,” he explains.

Despite the difficulties and fears that lie ahead, the Nyeko family is sure of one thing: life in the village will only be better. “If (the government and the rebels) sign a deal, peace will return,” says Grace, and along with it, “an easy life, full of happiness.”