By Catherine Piwang

Amwony RoseAmwony lives in a place in Gulu town area called Ireaga. Ireaga is an area within the municipality of Gulu town. It is an area that houses people who are displaced form their villages because of the war. It is not an IDP camp but it is similar in that it is full of little huts and each family rents one hut to live in. The huts are just as congested as in an IDP camp and there is lack of space, sanitation and any gardens for growing even vegetables. Ireaga area for all intents and purposes, is a refugee IDP camp. But not designated as such.

Rose Amony was one of the first women to become a victim of the LRA cruelties. She was born 1971. She got married in 1987 when she was 16 years.

In 1996, she was 25 years old and a mother of 4 children and that is when her life came in contact with the notorious LRA rebel gang (the group responsible for war in Northern Uganda.) The fact that she is alive today is a testament of God's protection on her life. The following is her story as she told it to me.

One afternoon as Amwony was going about her duties of cooking for family, a few dark shadows fell across the doorway of her little hut. And when she looked up, ‘horror of horrors'!... it was rag tag soldiers with guns aimed at her.

"Where is your husband?" they asked... she could hardly stammer an answer. She knew them, she had heard of what the LRA did to people. And this time, they had come to her home in broad daylight! That meant real trouble. And indeed it turned out to be so.

They asked her again... "where is your husband?" She knew; she could not tell them where he was because they had come to kill him. Amwony's husband was what was called a Local Defence man. The government had hired a few men to guard some villages and stretches of land where a few people inhabited places since not all the people lived in IDP camps at this point. The authorities had given Amwony's husband a gun for protection. The LRA had come for her husband and the gun.

Next question... "where is the gun?" Again she didn't know the answer. Her husband was in hiding and on patrol and had been for many months. She did not answer. The rebel commander (a top, top guy) was sitting under her mango tree shade in her compound listening to the radio and dancing to the music. He was the one who was giving orders. He said... "If she does not answer... beat her". So they did. And at this point... she was kicked with boots and 'gun butted.' Her life was in their hands. She was wailing, begging for mercy. Her brother in law... the younger brother of her husband heard her screams and came to see what was up. The rebel leader thought that he was Amwony's husband. No explanation would do but to start asking him for the gun. When he would not produce the gun... they said he was going to suffer.

They ordered Amwony to sit down and look as they tortured her brother in law. (He was 24 years old.) They beat him and she was not allowed to look anywhere but at him being tortured. She heard all his howls and screams and watched him bleed. Then they got a machete. They cut his arms and legs off and cut deep into his head till he died. She can never forget how he cried in pain. As all this was happening, she was watching and not allowed to make a single sound.

Then when her brother in law was dead, the commander ordered them to lay the body out in the afternoon sun in the yard right in the open. He then ordered for her to take off all her clothes and get on her ‘husband' as the Commander referred to him and say goodbye (meaning for her to have sexual contact with the body of her brother-in-law!)

He was saying all this to her while listening to radio music and dancing. She could not refuse! To disobey would mean instant death. So right there in public view of all the rebels, she was forced to strip naked and lay on top of her dead brother in law and do all this. And they were watching and laughing. When the rebel leader got tired of this amusement... he said... "Ah... I'm tired... now cut off her head and let us go. The LRA man raised the machete to cut off her head (she was still on top of her brother in law... naked.) She screamed "Nooo!!!!" and raised up her hand to protect her head. The machete came down with such force... it severed her hand which she had raised from the wrist downwards. Pain shot through her and she passed out. She remembers that the rebel were laughing and their leader was dancing to music still as all this went on.

Then he said... "drag her into the house. I guess it is not her day to die". So they grabbed her by the legs and dragged her off the dead body and into the hut. The pain of her hand was excruciating. She begged them to kill her instead. One LRA soldier said... "you think that is a problem to kill you?... not at all!" So, he cocked his gun and shot at her three times!! But, he missed her every time, and instead the bullets embedded in the mud walls of the hut. The rebels later left as the sun was setting. They cut her arm off at 3pm. They had stayed till 7pm when they left.

Amwony was left thus in pain and bleeding all night till some people found her the next morning and that is when she was taken to hospital. It took her months for the amputated arm to heal. She was in early stages of pregnancy when the cutting of her arm happened.

Now you might think that, that is the worst that Amwony had to suffer... you would be wrong. The very day that she was discharged from hospital, the LRA came to her village again! When they saw her arm one of them asked her the question, "is this our signature?" Meaning did our people do this to you? She said, "yes". Then he said to her, "it could have been worse". But they did not take her, they left her. Her husband had always lived in hiding and every morning she would take the children to a hiding place while she came home to work and cook for them. That is how her children escaped being abducted also.

In the same year 1996, they moved to another place which they thought was safer. But once again, the rebels came. She had just given birth to her 5th child and they abducted her and forced her to carry a heavy luggage on her head with her newborn baby on the back. They would not allow her to stop or rest or feed the baby. The baby was crying so much. They ordered her to abandon her new born baby right in the bushes, on the way in the bush! She begged to be allowed to leave the baby at least near some homes. They let her leave the baby in the bushes which were a few yards away from a home. It was at night. Amwony prayed for her baby to be found. After abandoning the baby, they made her to carry a goat on her back instead of her baby. They tied a goat on her back with ropes. On the head she carried a load of dry cassava root, maize flour and gum boots totaling almost 200 pounds of weight! They walked for two days in the bushes. After two days of walking with very little rest, they released her to go back home. She was set free.

She had to find her way back home and it took her a while to find her bearings in the bush. She had to move under cover, hiding from any other rebels. When she got back home, she found her baby a month later. The baby had been looked after and she was fine.

But Amwony's troubles were not over! When she got home she moved into an IDP camp hoping that this time she would be safe. That was not to be. She was living in Palaroo IDP camp. Again the LRA attacked the camp and she was abducted again. They looted food, goats, maize, anything. Again she was made to be a beast of burden to carry a heavy, heavy load of grain and cassava root. She carried this luggage on her head for two weeks into the bush moving towards the border. There was no stopping for long except a few minutes break. There was no water to drink. She did not drink water at all!! She was told to drink her own urine if she was thirsty. How Amwony Rose survived the two weeks of carrying, she does not know. No one was allowed to say the words "I'm tired". Saying that you are tired meant the end of you... that meant... being killed. They gave them fermented cassava root to eat. It is not palatable food. Many who had left the camp with her did not make it. They got killed for failing to continue walking or for collapsing on the way.

When Amwony got released after the two weeks, she came back to the IDP camp. But as soon as Amwony came back to Palaroo IDP camp, she decided that she could not stay there anymore! She opted to move into town if she had to sleep on the street! Nowhere else could be safe for her. She left the camp with her seven children and moved into town looking for where to stay. Her husband refused to leave the camp. He had another woman, and so she left alone. She went around asking for a place to stay till a good Samaritan gave her a few square feet of land and she built her hut there using her one hand to do this and with her children helping her, they built it and roofed it. That one hut houses her and her eight children.

She digs in other people's gardens to get some food and she told me that sewing tea towels is the other way that she earns money to feed her kids. Digging in someone's garden pays about 30 cents for work for the whole day of digging. One tea towel that Amwony makes earns her a pay of almost 2 dollars. Amwony is very good at making tea towels. She uses that one hand to sew and to dig. Amwony Rose is a ‘resilient' woman. She has not given up on life despite all that she has gone through.

Her dream is for children to study and have a better future than she has had. But how will Amwony Rose do this and educate her eight children with no source of income and no land to plant some crops? And she has no house of her own, and no husband either. I told Amwony that ChildReach Africa will help her to make sure that her children study so they do not end up getting married early which would be the next likely thing for them (especially her girls) if they do not stay in school.

Amwony needs help with paying tuition for her children and I really want to get for her a solar oven to help her with cooking her food and baking little things for sale. A solar oven costs 100 dollars (plus shipping.)

Amwony Rose - 36 years old (mother)
Children:
1. Auma - 19 yrs old - in primary 7 class (1988) girl
2. Alanyo - 17 yrs old - in primary 7 class (1990) girl
3. Opoka - 15 yrs old - in primary 5 class (1992) boy
4. Kidega - 13 yrs old - in primary 5 class (1994) boy
5. Ajok - 11 yrs old - in primary 4 class (1996) girl
6. Adokorach - 8 yrs old - in primary 1 class (1999) girl
7. Akisa - 4 yrs old - (not in school yet) (2003) girl
8. Ochora Walter - 4 yrs old - (not in school yet) (2006) boy