As investigations continue in Uganda into the brutal murder of eight Western tourists, including four Britons, Fiona Tarrant talks to two Oxfam field workers in the country about their security. The line is crackling and the echo annoying but the phone in Uganda does, eventually, ring. Kathleen Glancey answers.

She is a 33-year-old American married to a Frenchman. She has huge responsibilities. Some of them involve her role as manager of all the Oxfam projects undertaken in Uganda. The other priority is the safety of her two-and-a-half-year-old son.

"I do worry," she said. "As a woman I am aware of my vulnerability to a different kind of attack. As a mother I have different worries.

"When it was just my husband and myself, I accepted that you face certain risks as a humanitarian worker. When you have a child it changes everything."

Yet Kathleen faces a huge dilemma. "If I felt it was really dangerous to be here, I would leave with my family. Then again, I'm aware of the fact that Oxfam employs more than 100 Ugandans here.

"I am in a difficult and emotional position. These are people who are desperate for jobs. If we shut down here, they lose their livelihoods. I am always aware of that." Kathleen has been in Uganda since 1997. Before that, she worked for Oxfam in the Great Lakes in Rwanda. She was there at the time of the 1994 genocide, when 800,000 people were massacred. She has seen suffering and horrors few of us can imagine.

But she also sees other things, brought about by Oxfam, which restore her faith in humanity. Like the disabled Ugandans who now have a place in society and an MP to help them out. Like the farmers who have animals to rear and crops to harvest. Like the Sudanese refugees who now have food, water and clothing.

Just occasionally, she wonders why she's there. "The last time I was in Karamoja, in the north-east of Uganda, I saw people guarding their animals and crops with Kalashnikovs and AK47s. Most families have one or two guns.

"But it was when someone with a grudge against Oxfam tried to shoot the project manager there that I wondered what I was doing. You accept you may get caught in crossfire but it's not acceptable when someone decides to shoot you."

Kathleen is based in Kampala, Uganda's capital, which is hundreds of miles from the troubles around the country's borders, but still carries its own risks. "You don't wear flashy jewellery and I wouldn't travel around on my own at night. It's a capital city with a lot of urban poverty. It makes sense to be careful.

"When I go out in the field to visit projects I never travel alone. I always take a driver who knows the best route, the area and the language. That's common sense."

The Bwindi National Park massacre this week has disheartened her. "People in the West don't realise that these Interahamwe rebels are the thorn in Central Africa's side. This sort of thing does nothing for Africa's image. The tourists were not killed by bullets, they were hacked to death. It gives an image of Africans as barbarians. Tourists are already cancelling visits to other parts of Uganda. People won't think of it as a place for a holiday."

For now, Kathleen is happy to stay. She is not so happy that both the British and American embassies in Kampala have closed down, following the bombings of other US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam last year, or that they have had to take the Oxfam logos off their vehicles for fear of being recognised. But she is still working. It signals a dedication to changing and bettering the lives of other human beings but Kathleen inevitably finds herself wondering how much further she will push the safety barriers.

"A fellow Oxfam worker and I talked about it and decided it was like being a frog sitting in a puddle of water which starts to heat up. As the water gets hotter and hotter, the frog adjusts because it doesn't know enough to jump out.

Ian Leggett isn't being facetious when he likens the border areas of Uganda to the Wild West. "In certain areas the ownership and use of guns spell authority. Those with guns are in charge," he says.

And he should know. As regional manager for Oxfam projects in East and Central Africa - a job he's been doing since 1986 - the 48-year-old may be based in leafy north Oxford, but he knows the territory in Africa and has a feel for trouble.

Oxfam does not have any projects ongoing in the south of Uganda, where the eight British and American tourists were hacked to death in the Bwindi National Park by a band of Rwandan Interahamwe Hutu rebels this week. But Ian knows things may have to be re-scheduled quickly. The charity recently suspended an animal health project in Karamoja, on the north-eastern Ugandan border with Sudan, where the region is suffering from the effects of almost continuous warfare.

"The project manager, a Sudanese vet, has had to return to Kampala and the local Ugandans working alongside him have been suspended on full pay while we wait and see what happens," says Ian, who is responsible for Oxfam projects in Uganda, the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

The project suspension was the first of its kind for ten years in Uganda. But it has made Ian think long and hard about his staff in the field.

"No-one has been killed but we've had half a dozen or so people injured - just with cuts and bruises - when a Land Rover has been pushed off the road or ambushed.

"Bandits operate in all areas and you have to be careful," he explains, adding that attackers are usually after money and valuables, nothing more.

Oxfam's invisibility in some of the most volatile and unstable countries in Africa is something Ian is proud of. He's equally pleased with the amount of work the charity achieves, quietly and without fuss. The approach is a successful one. "I doubt many people in Uganda will know much about Oxfam. They won't know that we set up the national union for the disabled but they'll know all about the union. A job well done is not saying, 'Look what we did', but giving people self-esteem and recognition."

Often Oxfam is asked to join in with projects, fulfilling its humanitarian brief - the familiar blankets, food and clothing role. But Oxfam does much more. It works alongside local people to help improve quality of life and livelihoods for victims of war or poverty and it also lobbies governments when necessary.

But Ian maintains safety is always a top priority. "There are strict security guidelines we operate for travel in all countries to minimise the faintest possibility of danger.

"If a particular road is insecure we won't use it. We'll postpone visits and won't put visitors to our projects in any danger.

"If we have to, we'll change our schedule at the last minute and, even if a visitor wants to see a particular place, we'll refuse if it's dangerous. That's non-negotiable."

Story date: Monday 08 March

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.