Jan Egeland, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs and long-time advocate for increased international attention to northern Uganda, said Saturday that the UN should appoint a special envoy to northern Uganda and also asked the UN Security Council to appoint a panel of experts to investigate the LRA's activities and supporters.

By Daniel Wallis (Reuters AlertNet)

PATONGO, Uganda, April 1 (Reuters) - The United Nations should appoint a special envoy to help end the 20-year war in northern Uganda that has displaced 2 million people and is threatening regional stability, a U.N. expert said on Saturday. 

Cult-like rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have long operated from hideouts across the border in southern Sudan, and last year they also set up bases in the volatile jungles of neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

"An envoy would bolster regional action," Jan Egeland, the U.N. under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, told Reuters.

"Many countries should try to help on the political and military efforts, and an envoy would help to facilitate and coordinate that work."

Egeland was visiting Patongo camp in northern Uganda's Pader district, home to about 40,000 of the 2 million people displaced by the conflict.

"This is the epicentre of terror," he said, as he walked past bullet-scarred ruins in the middle of the sprawling camp meant to provide shelter from rebel violence.

Egeland said he had offered President Yoweri Museveni U.N. military experts to work with Ugandan soldiers on improving protection around the camps, often the target of LRA attacks.

Uganda's government often says the rebels -- who are notorious for targeting civilians and abducting thousands of children as fighters and "wives" -- are on the verge of defeat.

Egeland, who has called northern Uganda's war the world's worst neglected humanitarian crisis, said he was "moved to the bone" when he asked a group of Patongo women which of them had had a child kidnapped -- and they all put up their hands.

Egeland urged the Security Council to appoint a panel of experts to probe the LRA's activities and its backers.

"How come a small rebel group can terrorise such a large area and so many people for so long?" he asked.

Egeland's appeal to the international community was echoed by residents in Patongo, where rebels killed a soldier two weeks ago after invading the edge of the camp to steal food.

"If U.N. troops could come and monitor and survey our problems here, we could be as happy as other people in the region," said Daniel Cere, 27. "We have a lot of problems."

Angelina Okello, 57, said even the few young people in the camp who had been educated were idle because of lack of jobs, and had turned to drinking alcohol and crime.