Up to 35 people are feared to have starved to death across the country but Relief and Disaster Preparedness Minister Tarsis Kabwegyere said yesterday that there was no crisis.
In the West Nile region, as many as 15 people have reportedly died of starvation since Monday, the Maracha-Terego District Secretary for Finance, Mr Emmanuel Adripiyo, told a district council session this week.
Mr Adripiyo said six people had died in Ayivu Sub-county; four from each of Katrini and Uriama sub-counties, and one from Yivu. "The situation is now at a crisis point where we all need to address urgently otherwise hunger has become a silent killer in many homes that we visited," Mr Adripiyo said. The district official said most of the victims were children who had died after eating raw cassava of a poisonous strain.
In the Acholi sub-region, officials say at least 10 people, mostly children, have died of hunger-related complications over the last three weeks. Gulu District Woman MP Betty Aol Ocan told Daily Monitor that five children died of hunger last month in different sub-counties in Gulu as a result of the famine afflicting former internally-displaced people.
Ms Ocan identified Bobi and Palaro sub-counties as the worst-hit areas. The reports of the death were confirmed by Bobi LC5 councillors Keubino Ojok and Joyce Alima.
In Amuria District, the famine death toll has continued to rise since May when the first case was reported, to 12 as of yesterday, the District Chairman, Mr Julius Ochen, said last evening.
Mr Ochen named some of the dead as: Moses Asabu, Grace Mallingha, Francis Oryokot, Takan, Opailal, Otori, Emanuel Opwanya and Kevina Ariokot. He said two of the dead were children whose identities have not been established yet, but added that one of them died after eating wild fruits while another died after eating wild poisonous cassava.
"As we speak now the mangoes are finished and there is nothing for people to eat," Mr Ochen, speaking via telephone from Amuria, said yesterday. "People have now resorted to selling their property to be able to buy beans and posho." Such is the desperation in the district, Mr Ochen said, that affording one meal a day has become a luxury.
He said the situation was particularly grim in the sub-counties of Kapelebyong, Ngariam, Asamuk and Usuk and that the few employed people, such as civil servants, teachers and health workers, are being stretched to provide food for their extended families.
Amuria is one of several districts in the Teso, West Nile, northern and north-eastern regions whose officials have cried out to the government over food shortages. Other districts include Abim, Katakwi, Kotido, Moroto, Moyo, Adjumani and Arua.
Members of Parliament from Teso sub-region, who have threatened to boycott parliamentary proceedings if the government doesn't address the problem, say seven people have so far starved to death. Although the reports of deaths from across the country have not all been identified, they will increase pressure on the government, which has tended to leave the bulk of emergency food aid to foreign aid agencies, to do more to save lives.
However, Disaster Preparedness Minister Tarsis Kabwegyere said yesterday that there is no food crisis in the country and blamed the reports on opposition politicians.
At a press conference he called in Kampala yesterday to discuss food security in the country, Prof. Kabwegyere admitted that there are food shortages in some parts of the country as a result of crop failures from the prolonged drought but said the situation was under control. "There's nothing new from what the Members of Parliament are saying," the minister said. "The country is not in a crisis. My impression is that there is more politics than the real concern over food shortages."
Responding to the threat by MPs from the affected regions to boycott Parliament, Prof. Kabwegyere said: "I don't know how many of the MPs are doctors to have established that the cause of death of the people they claim were because of hunger."
He said the MPs should have cross-checked the facts concerning food security in their respective constituencies before raising a public alarm and threatening to go on strike.
"Alarms don't deliver food," Prof. Kabwegyere said. "It's not walking on the streets and threatening strikes that will address the problem. The solution to the food shortages is production and production means you have to cultivate big areas, on a large scale so that even when you have failures, you can make some yield."
The Disaster Preparedness minister said it was not the responsibility of the government to feed its citizens. "It's the duty of citizens to feed themselves; Government only comes in when the situation is very grave."
Three million at risk
Although the minister disputed the death claims, he said more than three million people - or one in three Ugandans - across the country do not have enough food to eat.
He said the government has so far invested Shs10 billion to buy food for the most vulnerable people. Prof. Kabwegyere said his ministry is already working with the Ministry of Finance on how to make more funds available for the second phase of food delivery to the food insecure areas.
He said the current food insecurity, for example in Teso sub-region, has been as a result of the 2007 floods and subsequent drought that hit the region, destroying crops and leaving thousands of people vulnerable to hunger and starvation.
He said in Katakwi and Amuria, the two districts most vulnerable to famine, the situation deteriorated to famine levels last month but the Office of the Prime Minister had intervened by buying and supplying 1,700 tonnes of maize flour and 650 tonnes of beans.
"The food security situation in Karamoja reached famine levels by December 2008. The situation is however under control with the World Food Programme supporting 1.3 million affected people," Prof. Kabwegyere explained.
State Minister for Agriculture Henry Bagiire said the government plans to revamp irrigation schemes that were broken down years ago so that farmers can get enough water for their crops in the event that rains fail, which he said is the main cause of the current crop failures.
Reported by Evelyn Lirri, Warrom Felix Okello, Cissy Makumbi & David Mafabi