A Ugandan minister is facing backlash after calling people who have died of hunger in Uganda “idiots”. A lot of people have called Henry Okello Oryem’s statement tone-deaf. In 2022 alone, more than 2,200 people died of starvation and other related illnesses in north-east Uganda, according to report by an official human rights body. Mr Oryem says that with Uganda’s favourable climate and fertile land, people should be able to grow their own food. “It’s only an idiot, a real idiot, that can die of hunger in Uganda,” the state minister for foreign affairs said to the NTV Uganda television channel.

“If you work hard, there is land in Uganda. The climate is right in spite [of] climate change. If you make a double effort to make sure that you go out in the morning, you till your land, you plant the seeds, you maintain your plantation, surely, how do you fail then to get food?”

Other than being the cause of death for a large part of the population, the food shortage in the north-east left around half-a-million people in “acute hunger”, as came up in the report by the Uganda Human Rights Commission, which was established according to their constitution.

Source: BBC News