History of Gulu

As the Museveni's force continued to commit atrocities against the civilian, several rebel groups were formed by the end of 1986. However these rebel groups were ex soldiers i.e. the UNLA from previous government prior to Museveni. By 1987 majority of such rebels joined Museveni's force. Then came another rebel group led by Alice Lakwena between 1988 to 1989. The Lord's Resistance Army sprang up in the 1990s after Alice Lakwena had left Uganda and went to Kenya. The LRA became increasing violent in Gulu and the surrounding communities. The UPDF government army have equally been accused of brutality against the civilian population.

In 1996 the Ugandan government ordered all civilians to relocate to internally displaced person (IDP) camps. Several campaigns such as Stop the Genocide in Northern Uganda StGiNU demanded the immediate closure of the "concentration camps" in the north of the country. From the spring of 2007, there has been relative peace due to International pressure calling the Ugandan government to stop the war and to reach a peace agreement with the LRA leader Joseph Kony.

In 2012 the American and Ugandan Red Cross started a plan to accurately map the city in Open Street Map. The map was created using crowd sourced mapping traced on satellite images donated by the US government, which were then tagged (street names, businesses and facilities names added) by local volunteers. The aim of the project was to improve disaster management.