Uganda’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Henry Okello Oryem has sparked outraged after calling those who have died of hunger in the country ‘idiots’, many deeming his comments tone-deaf.
During a TV interview while responding to a human rights report which estimates at least 2,200 Ugandans died of starvation and related illnesses in 2022, Mr Oryem argued that given Uganda’s favorable climate and fertile land, people should be able to grow food for themselves.
“It’s only an idiot, a real idiot, that can die of hunger in Uganda,” he said.
“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?” he added.
As well as killing many people, the food shortage in North East Uganda left nearly half-a-million people in acute hunger.
