Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bangassou (Agenzia Fides) – We often speak of children and child soldiers, abducted and enslaved by Ugandan rebels LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), a military group that is raging on the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and the far southeast of the Central African Republic. Few, however, are the testimonies of those who manage to escape from the clutches of guerrillas. Bishop Juan Jose Aguirre Munos of Bangassou, who recently gave an interview to Fides on the situation in his diocese, (see Fides 4/3/2010) sent Fides the following testimony of Marlene, a 13-year-old girl who spent 540 days in the hands of the LRA.
"In March 2008, hundreds of soldiers came to Obo, in eastern Central African Republic, which was my first mission, where I worked for 7 years. On that terrible night, the rebels looted granaries, women were raped in their beds by three or four soldiers at a time. They sowed despair, leaving dozens of families in mourning. That night, they took Marlene. They tied a rope to her waist, along with many other young people of Obo, put a bag with 25 kilos of cassava on her head and this is how she started her ordeal with the LRA.
She was forced to 15 days of forced march, witnessing the death of some of the others who had been kidnapped and who had been unable to keep pace with the others. They were killed by machete. What followed was a year and a half of horror, 18 months in the forest, dreaming of the food of her mother. Marlene was forced, along with the other hostages, to form a human wall when the Ugandan helicopter fired missiles at Kony's Camp, in the Congolese forest of Garamba. The whole time she was stayed lying on the ground, attached to a tree, pretending to sleep while someone abused another girl tied to the same trunk.
Marlene was employed as a housemaid, forced to serve the soldiers, washing their clothes in the river, attending the indoctrination of her classmates, who were kidnapped as her, brandished with an AK-47, and trained for war.
After the third escape attempt, last July, Marlene was able to return to Obo, after walking through the jungle for 10 days. She arrived with her feet destroyed, in a state of shock, with an open wound on her cheek. His mother did everything to feed her, hugging her at night when she shouted, and comforting her during her long silences.
A month later, the LRA raided Obo again: looting, rape, theft, and brutality. A few days ago they burned a car from an Italian NGO, killing the driver and his African assistant. That is how the name of Obo appeared on the Internet, since there was a link with Italy. But in Obo and its surrounding areas, 15,000 people live crushed by hunger and fear. I was forced to withdraw the nuns from this infernal reality, but the Central African priests remained to give courage and strength to the people. They did not flee in March 2008 and they were still there, like bronze columns, in October 2009.
Marlene is now in Bangassou, at a center for students near the Cathedral. A month later, Marlene began to smile shyly, telling her misfortunes, and started being a person like all the others." (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 15/3/2010)
