Shattered Innocence of Acholi Children: The Story of Blood, Tears, Death as Told by Abducted Children in Northern Uganda

Master Komakech, 14, wears a face of despair. For two years he lived in the bush. Scars and gaping wounds on his body tell the story of that life.
Komakech whose name means 'bad luck', got rescued from the horrors of the wild. After a month of hopping from one centre to another, he arrived at Gulu Support the Children Organisation (GUSCO). "I'm thinking of my mother," he says and turns his head away, eyes wet with tears again.
Komakech was abducted in 2002 from Agor village in Kitgum district with two of his brothers. His mother was hacked to death as he watched, screaming in the face of rebels to spare her life. His father had died only months earlier. "I think about her all the time. One of my brothers died in the bush, the other is still there," Komakech says. Komakech was rescued by the UPDF in Soroti district as he fled from a helicopter gun-ship that had scattered the rebels. He is not alone, though.

Oryem 12 is living testimony of the brutality of the war. A bullet from a helicopter gun-ship pursuing the rebels at Koch in Gulu, ripped off one of his fingers and smouldered his little hand, leaving a black ugly folded layer of skin. "I managed to escape. I have seen my parents but they are not taking me yet. I don't know why," he says.

For Opogo, 15, one of his legs was completely shattered. "The bullet hit the bone and splinters flew out. I was in pain but there were a lot of other people who had died lying everywhere," Opogo said. He had been with the rebels for one year. The only way they could survive, he said, was to participate in the killings. "I have never seen [Joseph] Kony but I used to see [Vincent] Otti. There was a lot of death in the bush, too much death," he said.