In the crowded, muddy camps in Amuria District the sun beats down, a stark contrast to only a few weeks ago when the rains came and didn't stop. But the fine weather is deceptive. While the sun shines overhead, underfoot the ground in the camp is sodden - waterlogged by the rains which continue to fall in the mountainous north of the country before making their way here, to lower lying land.

Twenty-year-old Mary lives in Angedakiteng camp with her baby daughter, Otim Joffery, who is 16 months old. "Although it is dry now the ground is always wet in my home," she says. "I cannot put my baby down anywhere and have to carry her all the time - it is so much worse than before."

The residents of this camp for internally displaced persons, and scores of others in this region, have all fled their homes to escape the violence of local cattle raiders and the conflict which has raged in Uganda for over twenty years.

Their stories are terrifyingly similar, describing scenes of torture, abduction, brutality and murder on an unimaginable scale. Having lost everything, these are Uganda's most vulnerable. And tragically, it is they who now bear the brunt of the massive flooding which has been wreaking devastation across the country since July.

Theresa, 40, has been living in the camp with her eight children since she fled her village when it was attacked by armed militia five years ago. Now even the small mud hut which is her temporary home is damaged. "The floods this year destroyed every aspect of life," she says. "The water broke through the house, it crashed through the walls. We have never experienced floods like this."

The floods also bring with them a new threat to the lives of the camp's population, creating a breeding ground for a wide array of deadly water borne diseases. Red Cross assessment teams fear that current sanitation conditions in the camps mean a serious outbreak of disease is all too possible.

According to IFRC's team leader in Uganda, Oystein Larsen, there are limited health facilities and latrines in the camps. "The ones which did exist are now completely flooded," he says. "As a result, the residents - of which there are thousands - are going in the bush and the health implications of this are massive."

For many, the floods have also shattered many displaced peoples' dreams of returning home. The fragile ceasefire had brought a period of relative peace to the region, creating cause for hope. Some had even begun to leave the safety of the camp during the day to go and tend to their crops in the villages nearby.

But the crops have now all been destroyed. "We can't get drinking water because the spring is submerged and the rains have destroyed all my crops which I had been harvesting three miles away," says one resident called Charles. "I have nothing now."

Others long to continue to take the small steps back to self sufficiency made possible by the relative peace Uganda is now enjoying.

"I am craving to go back home now there is more peace. I visit regularly and have been rebuilding my home ready to go back, but that cannot happen now because of the floods," says Theresea.

With nowhere else to go, and lacking access to the most basic necessities such as clean, safe drinking water, life for the displaced in Amuria district is bleak. Distributions of essential items such as blankets, jerry cans, mosquito nets and tarpaulin sheeting by the Uganda Red Cross are helping people to survive. But much more is needed.

For Mary, the future remains uncertain. "I just want to go back and settle in my village with my baby," she says. "I want to leave this camp but I am not optimistic."

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