Ugandan priests help displaced make long awaited journey home

|PIC1|Priests and seminarians in Uganda dedicated to helping displaced people are celebrating a job well done after they returned to their home villages in their thousands.

Around 80 per cent of the internal refugees – many of whom have lived in displacement camps for 20 years – have now returned to the villages they originally came form, according to Monsignor Cosmas Alule, rector of Alokolum major seminary in Gulu diocese, northern Uganda.

Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, a charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, he told how the refugee camp that had grown up around the seminary during the country’s civil war was gradually emptying.

Independent reports from organisations including the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre say that up to 1.8 million people were displaced along the northern border in the Acholi, Lango and Teso sub-regions – with up to 400,000 returning home last year alone.

According to Mgr Alule, even though the final peace accord between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army has not yet been signed, the civil war, which began in 1988, was effectively over.

“Peace has finally arrived”, he said, describing how, unlike a year ago, it is now safe to travel on the roads in the region.

“Nonetheless, the situation is still a real challenge for the Church,” he said.

More than 150 seminarians from Alokolum seminary have continued to support the returning refugees – having lived and worked alongside them in the camps, ministering to their needs.

ACN has provided assistance for the seminary’s work, and has already paid out more than £9,500 in Mass stipends for priests teaching at the seminary to support Alokolum’s ministry with those affected by the civil war.

Students from Alokolum are going into the villages, helping returning refugees build new lives for themselves.

Many seminarians are teaching in the schools, but children who have grown up in the refugee camps are frequently disturbed and unruly.

Mgr Alule said: “They have never had the chance to learn such things as hard work, self-discipline and respect for other people and their possessions.

“An important part is played here by the older generation, who have preserved their traditional values and are now able to pass them on to the younger people.”

He also told ACN how an “entire generation” of adults are struggling to return to normal life, as in the camps many had forgotten how to earn a living, and there is also the problem of psychological trauma.

Mgr Alule said: “Many people are deeply traumatised, having witnessed such horrors as their own mothers, sisters and wives being raped, children abducted and their fellow humans murdered.”

In order to help those affected, a number of pastoral workers are being trained in a centre set up for this purpose by the diocese of Gulu.

The rector said the Church had taken a “prophetic decision” to keep the seminary in Alokolum and not move it to a less dangerous part of the country.

Mgr Alule added that if they had relocated, the faithful would have been given the impression that the Church was abandoning the suffering people in order to keep the seminarians safe.

He said the Church had retained the trust of the people.

The monsignor added that this had been “an important signal for the future,” showing “that the Church is on the side of the people in their joy and suffering.”
According to Mgr Alule the war left no seminarian unscathed, which means they empathise with other Ugandans and provide good pastoral care.

Many seminarians were born in the camps or had been abducted by the rebels.
Despite these challenges the number of vocations continues to rise.

During the last academic year there were 163 seminarians, while in the coming one there will be 206 – but the building is only really suitable for around 140 students.
ACN is now raising £8,800 for the construction of a new dormitory.