With this blog post, I want to draw attention to an unexplainable, incurable illness that has claimed the lives of at least 170 children and has affected at least 3.000 more in northern Uganda. It is called 'nodding disease', after the nodding of the head shown by its victims. Their brain is affected, just like their body growth and ability to speak. Even if they survive, they risk remaining handicaped for the rest of their lives.
I met Nancy, the girl in the picture, after northern Uganda took centre stage in the world news in early March following the release of the controversial video 'Kony 2012' by American ngo Invisible Children. 'Kony 2012' advocates for a solution to the suffering caused by Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA was active in northern Uganda for many years. People in the region told me they do not understand why anyone cares to talk about Kony anymore though. The most recent LRA-attack here took place six years ago. Nowadays, they explained, the threat to our children is called 'nodding disease'.
You can read some of my reports here and here (in Dutch) and here (in English). I have also added more pictures of Nancy - her father Michael Odongkora has agreed to the publicity. The images show us how desperate the parents of sick children are: fearing that their handicaped children will wander off into a river of a wildfire while they themselves are out working on the fields, they tie them to trees. Nancy is certainly not the only child in northern Uganda to 'live' like this.
Donations for the victims can be made to, amongst others, the Red Cross.
(verzonden vanaf tablet)
