MAF News June 2008

PDF download of MAF News June 2008 edition

As our planes support front-line teams, traumatised people receive practical support as well as hope for tomorrow

Desperate refugees fled their villages in northern Uganda. The year was 2002.

The government ordered people to move to special camps to protect them from the feared rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Patongo was one of those camps for internally displaced people – and 87,000 gathered there. There was no clean water or sanitation. Unable to leave, the refugees were unable to farm either, so there were severe shortages of food.

Typical of the many camps in the war-stricken north, Patongo was too small and greatly under serviced.

Airstrip opened

Fraser Bell from Nottingham, then Country Director for Medair in Uganda, recalls: ‘When we started working at Patongo, we had to start from scratch.’ Because of the extreme isolation, Fraser soon started to dream about aircraft.