Benon's Story - May 2010
WHAT HAPPENED TO ME IN ACHOLI PII.
The rebels attacked the camp on 14th July 1996 when I was only 7 years of age.
They surrounded the people at dawn when some people were going to their fields to dig (men with their wives).
When the people saw the rebels, they wanted to run away but the rebels said:”Don’t run away; we are not rebels; we are NRA soldiers who come from Agago to pay you a visit. Where and which road did the rebels follow? Dont’t run any how.”
Then they started arresting people at random. If you were a man putting on a shirt, it would be used to tie someone next to you. When the people realized there were not NRA soldiers they started running away. The rebels forced the camp Chairman to call back the people which he did and the people came back.
The rebels who were up to more than 50, gathered all the people: men women, youths and children, under a big mango tree and they separated the women and children from the men and male youths. The women and children were told to sit down while the men were told to lie down making a circle surrounding the mango tree.
They killed all the men and went away with all the young girls for their wives.
I remember seeing only 12 young boys left in the village. I wonder where the rest of the boys went.
The total number of people who died in Acholi Pii that day was 209.
KIVUUVU CAMP
After the fateful day of the killings, my father had died, my two brothers had died, my two sisters were taken and my mum collapsed and died because of the trauma shortly after the rebels had gone.
The 12 of us (young boys) were taken to central Uganda (Kampala) by NRA soldiers who abandoned us on the streets of Kampala. Each one had to find his own way.
One day, I was picked by a lady who worked in Kampala but resided in Mukono near Kivuuvu IDP Camp. She took me to the camp chairman, introduced me there and up to now, I am staying in the camp.
LIFE IN KIVUUVU IDP CAMP
People in the camp: some live with their relatives and most of us live on our own sharing a small room for more than 10 people.
Those who live with their relatives cook their own food which they buy after doing some casual labour in the sugar-cane plantations.
The rest of us eat food provided by the sugar-cane management and mostly the well-wishers. This food is prepared generally and only one a day. Sometimes it may not even be food (posho) but porridge and at times posho without source.
Most of us lack what to do because we don’t have skills in different fields.
I thank God for HUR organization which took me in a vocational training school where I have trained as a journalist.
I can now go out, write news and send to different national selling papers and I am paid some money. HUR also gave me a camera and a recorder which I am using in my career.
If there was an established place in the camp or the community around for a vocational training school where people in the camp can be trained in different skills, I would help in training in the journalist career - voluntarily!
I pray that HUR helps us to establish a vocational training school which will be so useful to the rest of the young adults in Kivuuvu IDP Camp, who have not yet had the chance to train in any career.
