Rtd Bishop of Northern Uganda Diocese Onono Nelson Onweng has told the people in Lokodi village, where the Lord Resistance Army in 2004 committed massacre on over 200 people,   to practice family planning since poverty would not be easy to fight if parents are bearing so many  children they cannot take care off.

Bishop Onono Onweng (R) and the 4th division medical team. Photo by James Onono Ojok

The Bishop was addressing over 300 people, who had gone to access free medical treatment on Malaria, family planning, HIV test among others,  organized by the Military 4^th division medical outreach team and Bishop Onono foundation in the village.

“We are talking about prosperity for all, but if we have great number of children we cannot keep then it is hard for it to be achieved,“ he lamented.

When asked by journalists why he preaches family planning, yet he is a stanched Christian and the Bible talks of multiplying and filling the World, the Bishop defended that he also looks at family planning from the angle of healthiness of the woman and the children. Apart from the spacing bit of it though flashed that there was enough food in those days without scarcity compared to now that serious crisis has hit the Region and the country at large.

He also discouraged people in Lokodi not to have a mindset to produce and replace over 200 deaths recorded in the area in 2004, but advised to have appropriate number of children to cater for.

The bishop also cries that people in the area, since the Massacre have undergone psychological trauma that has not been addressed, citing an example of a certain woman he said got mad after she found that she had lost 3 children in the massacre and called on willing partners who have the capacity to address the psychological aspect of Lokodi people.

Stella Maris Opoka, the 4^th division senior medical clinical officer, said that the outreach program is aimed at making the community know that even the Army has other duties to the community apart from fighting battles and is one of the ways they are contributing to the peace in the region.

As a general outcry, she complained of few medical workers as sometimes they have great population and asserted that the drugs are directly supplied to them these days by National Drug Stores

The Military outreach team has so far visited Pece division in Gulu municipality, where over 900 people have benefitted from the 4^th division medical aid.

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