Uganda probe into hospital deaths

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The death in northern Uganda of at least seven patients during a five-day medical workers' strike will be investigated, the health ministry says.

Minister for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru said he was "horrified" by what he saw at Lira Hospital.

"Three bodies had started decomposing on the ward beds," Reuters news agency quotes him as saying.

The hospital employees went on strike to demand their unpaid allowances for working in the war-torn north.

This part of the country has been the scene of frequent fighting between government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army for more than 20 years.

The medical workers have returned to work after receiving assurances that the allowances will be paid.

Mr Ecweru said that sick people and their families had looked on helplessly in the wards where patients had died.

According to the state-run New Vision newspaper, pregnant women in the maternity ward were assisting each other to deliver.

Medical workers in the north have often had to deal with the mutilations carried out by LRA fighters, who cut the lips and tongues from civilians and took their children off to fight or serve as sex slaves.

Peace negotiations to end the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted some 2m, are under way in southern Sudan.