{UAH} UN helicopter damages classroom block in Arua
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7:56 AM |
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- Written by URN
Teachers at Inyau government-aided primary school in Arua district will have to improvise after the roof and walls of one of their classroom blocks was damaged by a helicopter downdraught yesterday, Thursday.
Helicopters carrying dignitaries, including the United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres, landed at the school as Guterres visited Imvepi refugee resettlement camp in Terego county.
Guterres is in Uganda where he is co-hosting a UN-baked Refugee Solidarity Summit with President Yoweri Museveni. The conference hopes to rally the donor community to support the cause of 1.3 million refugees living in Uganda.
Charles Draga, the Inyau primary school head teacher says the building destroyed by the downdraught had just been completed with funds solicited from parents. Every pupil was required to pay Shs 1,000 as contribution to the construction.
"We have just finished construction and we have been using it for teaching and as staff house. Even when we get visitors we host them there because we don't have space in school," Draga said.
While in Arua, Guterres visited Imvepi camp, home to 100,442 refugees mainly from South Sudan. Inyau primary school which is about 4km from Imvepi camp accommodates over 1,000 refugee pupils who walk from the camp to the school.
Draga added that if the United Nations refugee agency - UNHCR doesn't help them to reconstruct the block, they will have to wait for parents in the area to contribute again towards its construction.
Records at the school show that Inyau has 1,050 refugee students and 584 nationals making a total of 1,634 pupils. In just the past year, the overall refugee population in Uganda has more than doubled - from 500,000 to more than 1.25 million - making Uganda host to the world's fastest growing refugee emergency.
Guterres, who once headed UNHCR for 10 years, hopes to use the Kampala conference to raise part of the $ 8 billion dollars the Uganda government needs to address the refugee crisis over the next four years.
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