Displaced, disconnected and forgotten: Testimony of an LRA survivor
My name is Esperance, which in French means “hope.” I come from a town in north-eastern Congo next to the Sudanese border, and I have 9 children and no husband. My life changed on the 17th Sept 2008, a date that I will never forget. That morning, we heard rumours that the LRA had arrived into town and were at the market and local hospital, killing and kidnapping people. My family and I fled into the bush, but it was too dangerous to go to the school to get my eldest daughter Antoinette. (not her real name)
We hid in the bush for three days. When we finally got the courage to go back, we saw many bodies on the road and I discovered that our house had been burned to the ground- everything that we owned was gone. I then found out that the LRA had gone to the school and had kidnapped 60 children inside, including my daughter.
Antoinette was in the bush with the LRA for 2 years before she was able to escape. To my surprise, she had a baby boy. Antoinette had been forced to be the “wife” of an LRA fighter and had given birth in the forest – she was only 14. We now all live in a camp in Dungu, miles away from home, but safer. After living in a classroom for a while, the local nuns allowed us to start living on their land and NGOs gave us tarps to build the shelters that we live in.
Life here in the camp is so difficult and different than at home. Before, we had fields and could go hunting and fishing- we had plenty to eat. Now, I spend most of my time figuring out ways to feed my family so that we don’t depend on the food distributions. Back home, my children could go to school because we could sell our extra crops to pay for school fees. Now, of my 9 children only 3 go to school because I can’t afford it. I try to do manual labour and sell donuts at the market to pay the school fees, as well as the medical expenses that are getting more and more expensive. My children are always sick with malaria and I can’t always afford the medicine.
We don’t know what motivates the LRA, all we know is that they want to kill. We don’t know how we are going to get out of this situation. We don’t know when this will end. We pray for the war to finish, we pray for Kony [the leader of the LRA] and his men to leave so that we can go home.