The failure of the police and army to recover stolen cattle made young men take the law into their own hands. Hundreds of people were killed. Locals wonder whether some officers are profiting from the raids
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitask, Karamoja is going through an uneven transition. Elders recall a time when cows were plundered for prestige or bride wealth. But in recent decades cattle-raiding has become big business. Stolen animals are trucked to distant markets, since urban demand for beef has grown. On the grasslands the ownership of livestock is becoming more unequal, as the big owners get bigger and poorer ones struggle—and go hungry.
In the 1990s and early 2000s raiders ran rampant in Karamoja. Thousands of cows were stolen. Others died of disease after being crowded into kraals . The army eventually bludgeoned the raiders into submission. By 2010 cattle-keepers began to restock. Now the raiders are back. In Kaabong district they have emptied 32 of 34 kraals, where cattle are meant to be kept safe.
In the search for illegal guns the army has rounded up thousands of young men, often on flimsy pretexts. In March a spokesman said it had killed more than 300 “warriors” during disarmament operations. Theand the government’s own human-rights commission have accused soldiers of extrajudicial killings. Former captives describe being tied to trees and flogged. Locals wonder whether some officers are profiting from the raids.
The raids are starting to abate again, partly because of the army campaign, partly because there is little left to steal. In the 2018-19 season Karamoja’s livestock provided $444m of value to their owners, estimates the Karamoja Resilience Support Unit, a research group. Those benefits include meat, milk, ploughing and informal insurance . Yet even before the latest wave of raiding, most households owned fewer than 3.
Many Karamojong instead find casual work on farms, brew beer or drive motorbike taxis in the towns. Others scrape by in the economy of petty extraction, burning trees for charcoal or tunnelling for gold. Auda Lokwang leaves her children at home from sunrise to sunset while she gathers firewood in the scrubland, exchanging it in Moroto town forFor generations, the Karamojong survived a capricious environment by balancing cattle-herding and crop cultivation.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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