EXCLUSIVE – ‘I was raped at 14... now I'm bringing up my rapist’s baby': Schoolgirl breastfeeds nine-month-old son she is forced to raise alone after attack in lawless South Sudan where boys are taught to murder, torture and kidnap

Tears roll down Martha Ayiens’ face as she whispers the words that for 18 months she told no one: ‘I was raped.’

She repeats her words as if we have not heard, this time a little louder: ‘I was raped…I was a schoolgirl…a child.’

For almost a minute there are no more words, just quiet sobs as the 16-year-old sits in the shade of a giant mango tree, a warm wind carrying red dust across the baking refugee settlement some 15-miles from Uganda’s border with South Sudan.

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Terror: Martha Ayiens, pictured, was just 14 when she was raped in her own home in South Sudan. She spoke to MailOnline on the border with Uganda with her young son Gabriel, now aged nine months

Horror: Martha told MailOnline: ‘I tried to scream but couldn’t, I tried to fight but he threw me against the wall, hard…I hit my head and fell to the ground. That is when he did it…when he raped me'

Trauma: Following the terrible attack Martha said she wanted to harm herself: ‘I wanted to kill myself, I did not want to be here anymore’

Tender: Martha is forced to live with the fact her son was born as a result of a terrible crime, but is tender with him and is still lovingly breastfeeding him at nine months old

All the time her nine month-old son Gabriel - a result of the attack when she was just 14 - is cradled in her right arm, sometimes suckling milk from a breast, sometimes crying too.

Drying her eyes with a pink shawl and straightening in her flimsy plastic chair, she continued to reveal her secret: ‘I was at home alone and about to go to bed when this big man came in through the door. 

‘I tried to scream but couldn’t, I tried to fight but he threw me against the wall, hard…I hit my head and fell to the ground. 

'That is when he did it…when he raped me. ‘I wanted to kill myself, I did not want to be here anymore.’ 

The extraordinary and harrowing story was told to Mail Online as we travelled to the settlements dotted in parched scrubland along the border with South Sudan where more than 170,000 refugees live – nearly 150,000 of them women and children – to witness the exodus caused by the unrelenting conflict and killing in the world’s youngest nation and to hear first-hand how continued bloody unrest is tearing the country apart. 

Born amid international optimism and local celebration in 2011, South Sudan imploded in civil war in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir, accused his one-time vice-president, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. 

Children: Martha's story is sadly one of many. Of the 2.29 million displaced by the violence in South Sudan, more than 170,000 refugee have fled the country to camps on the Ugandan border and nearly 150,000 of them are women and children

Refugees: South Sudan is officially the worst place in the world to be a child and up to 500 refugees are arriving in northern Uganda every day. MailOnline found so many stories of trauma and terror

Escaped: Betty Foni, 15, escaped from the outskirts of the South Sudan capital Juba last month, with five brothers and sisters, including an 18 month-old. She said tribes were kidnapping boys to fight

Family: Thomas, pictured left, escaped with his aunt and his baby cousin after his soldier father was killed and his mother died of disease. ‘It is no place to live and be a child,’ he told MailOnline

What started as a power struggle spread out from the capital, Juba, spread alarmingly with the country’s 64 tribes taking sides. 

The latest peace deal was signed in August but – as we heard many times – fighting has continued with more than 10,000 people killed and 2.29 million displaced. 

Broken lives, broken families are everywhere, all with their own disturbing story of escape and of rape, looting, torture, kidnap, child abuse, hardship and murder. 

South Sudan is officially the worst place in the world to be a child and talking to the children, their mothers and aid workers on the frontlines of the refugee influx in northern Uganda – up to 500 are arriving a day – it is easy to understand why. 

Two children told us how eight grandmothers, all over 65 year-old, had been too weak and slow to escape to the bush when gunmen arrived in their village. 

All were raped. Boys spoke of how they are being kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers – only a ransom paid in cows can save them. 

Others told of homes being set ablaze with families inside. Gunmen wait outside and open fire as women and children try to escape. 

One 16 year-old woman told aid workers she has been gang raped at gunpoint by men in uniforms. She became pregnant – and was diagnosed HIV. 

Help: MailOnline travelled to the South Sudanese border to meet the refugees pouring over the border into Uganda. This baby is being cared for by a sister hardly any older

Exodus: Mail Online travelled to the settlements dotted in parched scrubland along the border with South Sudan where more than 170,000 refugees live – nearly 150,000 of them women and children – to witness the exodus caused by the unrelenting conflict and killing in the world’s youngest nation 

Civil War: South Sudan was founded in 2011, but it soon imploded in civil war when the president accused his vice-president of plotting to overthrow him. The power struggle soon spread out of the capital, Juba

Registration: Now refugees stream over the border, carrying all they have, to enter northern Uganda where they are met by British charity Save the Children and UNICEF

Fire: Women have been raped at gunpoint and children forced from their homes as gunmen set fire to their straw roofs. The thugs even shoot when the families try to escape

In a country where sexual based violence is a cultural norm, many told of women and girls in their communities being raped. Yet of all the stories we heard, it was perhaps Martha’s (names have been changed to protect their identity) that was the most disturbing, shocking too staff listening aid workers. 

Gemma Parkin of the British charity Save the Children, which works extensively in the settlements around Adjumani, a frontier town where goats, chickens and sheep stroll across the scorched red earth streets, and listened to Martha’s story, said: ‘Rape is being used as a weapon of war and the victims are left with their lives shattered. 

‘Men turn up and loot properties and burn the houses down, which happens quickly when the roof is made of straw. 

When families evacuate the burning house they are shot on sight. ‘Children report waking up to gun fire and seeing their relatives shot and killed.  Those able to run will hide in the bush. Those caught or left behind are often raped.’

Hide: Children told MailOnline how they were woken up by gunfire and ran to hide in the bush, often separated from their families in South Sudan, the world's youngest nation which is now riven with conflict

Refuge: After walking for days in the heat, they arrive in settlements around Adjumani, in northern Uganda where British charity Save the Children works to help provide emergency support

Vulnerable: These children told MailOnline how they were forced to walk to the border of South Sudan and Uganda, with their disabled mother, to escape the horror of the South Sudan civil war 

MailOnline visited the reception centre at Nyumanzi, 350 miles north of Uganda’s capital Kampala but just 13 miles from the South Sudan border, where 4,000 refugees are taking shelter from the brutalities of the civil war

 Desperate: The settlements are made of basic mud and brick houses topped with grass roofs. They are full of young mothers – in South Sudan 19 per cent of girls marry before the age of 14 – many with their husbands either dead, fighting for one of the 24 recognised armed groups in the conflict ravaged country or separated by war

Blood: Martha Ayiens was attacked during three days of fighting around her home where she saw people shot dead in front of her and houses set on fire. She escaped with her grandmother and siblings but was left pregnant and now has a nine-month-old baby

The settlements here of basic mud and brick houses topped with grass roofs are full of young mothers – in South Sudan 19 per cent of girls marry before the age of 14 – many with their husbands either dead, fighting for one of the 24 recognised armed groups in the conflict ravaged country or separated by war.

Only Martha’s grandmother, Susan, 55, who had actually been the one to spot she was pregnant, had known she was expecting and they had told everyone that she was among those girls who had married young - and it was unquestioned until she so dramatically unburdened herself to us. 

Her bare feet encrusted in dust and dressed in a filthy dark skirt and thinning stained top, she still looks a child. 

She said it was dark around 11pm and she has no idea who carried out the rape but it happened at a time of fierce fighting around her village which was stormed by gunmen three days later. 

Holding Gabriel’s tiny hand in her’s, Martha recalled in her native Madi language: ‘There was a lot of gunfire and I witnessed someone being shot dead in front of me, I saw people covered in blood and houses set on fire.’ 

Together with four brothers and sisters and their grandmother – both parents are dead, her father was a soldier shot in the fighting – they decided to flee from their village near capital Juba and hid in the bush. 

‘We knew rebels were hiding in the bush too but I had given up and thought “If they are going to kill me, it will happen”. 

After what had happened, I did not mind.’ It took the family four days – they hid at night – to reach the border and safety of Uganda. 

Like any mother, Martha is tender with her tiny son, stroking his hair and fingers, moving him from one side to another as flies land on him. 

Basic: Food is prepared for refugees in the Nyumanzi reception centre in Uganda, in giant vats but they are grateful for any basic provisions. Many have been torched from their homes

Deadly: Girls in South Sudan are more likely to die in childbirth than finish school because such a large percentage are forced to marry at such a young age

So unlucky: South Sudan is the worst country in the world in which to be a child. These two children are lucky enough to have made it to northern Uganda where they are housed in settlements by the government

Help: Save the Children is teaching how to make traditional mud bricks and helping families build houses in their new settlements

He looks happy and healthy, demanding more breast milk. She is unsure of her emotions, she said, but in a region where hardship is common to so many young mothers, she loves her son and will not leave him. 

Susan, her face gnarled from the sun, came to sit on the dirt beside Martha: ‘She was a good girl studying hard at school. 

She had no boyfriends, this was so bad. She said Martha had kept the attack a secret until she noticed the change in her body and had told her she was pregnant. ‘I was very shocked but bad things happen in our country to girls and women, we are her family and will be with her to help…it is our way.’ 

Within minutes of telling her story, Martha was earmarked for special help, including psychological first aid by Save the Children experts. 

She too will receive nutrition and help with Gabriel from the charity’s specialists and volunteers although home is a mattress on an airless hut floor where mosquitoes can gather in the roof to strike often at night.

Safety: Children are registered when they arrive and have access to clean water, shelter, school and games

Child friendly: British Charity Save The Children, attached to the Nyumanzi reception centre in Uganda, have set up a safe play space where refugees from South Sudan are brought for registration after fleeing across the border 

Missing: Save the Children have managed to reunite 4,000 children with their families inside South Sudan and are working to trace the families of children that are now turning up in Uganda, having fled alone or become lost in the chaos

Kidnap: Gunmen have kidnapped boys and forced them to fight in South Sudan's brutal civil war

Witness: Thomas Jurugo, 13, travelled for two days, mostly on foot, to reach the border after witnessing gunmen ransom his neighbour's wife before raping her 

In the reception centre of 4,000 refugees at Nyumanzi, 350 miles north of Uganda’s capital Kampala but just 13-miles from the south Sudan border, we watched 193 new arrivals from the border as they clambered out of crowded trucks clutching their tragic few belongings – a mattress here, a jerry can there, cooking pots, a blanket – and gulping down water to provide some comfort from temperatures topping 35 degrees. 

Thomas Jurugo, 13, who travelled for two days, mostly on foot, to reach the border, told how gunmen had raided his home village of Kerepi in the east, killing several villagers and beating women. The gunmen had burst into a neighbour’s home taking away her husband and demanding a ransom from his wife. 

When she could not pay, they raped her, Thomas said. Wiping his hands on his grubby Barcelona replica shirt, he said: ‘We woke the next morning and were frightened and fled…my brother and sister went too but I don’t know where they are. We lost one another in the panic. The whole environment is terrible. 

‘I know of 10 people who were shot, there were burning houses and bodies on the road. We were with my aunt and her baby and I thought they would rape her too.’ 

Thomas, whose soldier father was shot dead and mother died from disease, added: ‘It is no place to live and be a child.’ 

His aunt Loyce Anzoa, 22, a teacher, and her two month-old baby Edimon are in the camp too and echoed his story.

‘People are being killed for no reason day and night,’ she said, ‘Many children have been lost. They are raping women, shooting men, chasing children at night from their homes.’

FIVE-YEAR-OLD ESCAPED WITH HER BABY SISTER ON HER BACK AFTER HER VILLAGE SAW WAR, KILLING AND LOOTING

A five-year-old girl walked for eight hours carrying her tiny sister on her back to reach the banks of the river Nile after their home village was attacked. 

Terrified, Loria Fackline was rescued as she carried one year-old Janet by a mother also fleeing armed militia with her own children. 

Together the pair crossed the Nile with Mary Kiden’s three children in December 2013 and reached the safety of northern Uganda where they live among fellow refugees from South Sudan in the sprawling Boleri settlement of small huts. 

Mary, 55, is now their foster mother while efforts are made to trace their parents although it is feared they may be dead. 

Foster mum: Loria Fack, left, was just five years old when she fled her village with her one year old sister on her back. She joined mother-of-three Mary Kiden as she crossed the NIle as is now fostered by her 

‘I will look after them for as long as is necessary,’ said Mary sitting beside her home where chickens were sheltering from the 35 degree sun. 

‘My heart was heavy when I saw her struggling to carry her sister,’ Mary recalled, ‘they were so young and she was struggling, I asked if they would like to accompany us and they were very happy. For them to have crossed the Nile in a boat would have been very dangerous.’ 

‘War, killing, looting had come to their village and in the panic everyone ran in different directions. 

She took her brother and ran, she does not know what has happened to her mother but Loria thinks she saw a body of someone killed that looked like her.’ 

Children who have been separated from their parents are being cared for in northern Uganda

Loria said: ‘When I woke up we were in the house on our own and there was a lot of gunfire and noise. I picked up the baby and went on to the street. 

Everyone was running so I ran with them too and became lost. I just followed where people were going and we came to the river but it was too hard for me to cross.’ 

For children like her, attempts to trace the family begin as soon as they reach the ‘reception centre’, 12 miles from the border at Nyumanzi where Save the Children screens each unaccompanied child. 

Of 8,700 unaccompanied or separated children to have reach Uganda, the charity has reunited over 4,000 with their families in South Sudan. 

This is partly due to a app developed for aid agencies by mobile telephone companies that allow them to share information with colleagues in other countries. 

A tent at the entrance of the giant Nyumanzi centre is often the first port of call for a child with their photograph and known personal details such as a parent’s name registered and sent to a central data base. 

But Mary fears there is little chance for her two foster children to find relatives as so little is known about them. 

‘It is very sad,’ she said, ‘I will be their mother until this changes, I have no hope…’ Mary is one of a team of dozens of carefully chosen foster mothers, vetted, screened and trained by Save the Children from within the South Sudanese refugee community. 

There are 64 tribes in the country – many hostile to one another - and special attention is given to ensuring a ‘match’ is made. 

Each family like Mary’s are then given basic kit such as mosquito netting – 650 have died recently in northern Uganda from malaria – jerry cans, plates, cooking pots, a personal hygiene kit, including a tooth brush, flipflops and three sets of clothes.

School: Many children said their greatest wish in Uganda was to go to school - a chance to return to childhood

Education: Save the Children runs both a safe play area and basic schools at the Nyumanzi centre

Respite: These poor children have witnessed horrors in South Sudan, such as being burned from their homes and attacked, but at the border refugee camp they get their first chance to learn reading and maths

Despite the horror stories there is genuine laughter and happiness in Nyumanzi too where Save the Children run both a safe play area and basic schools which delights the youngsters.

Many children told us of the greatest wish in Uganda was to go to school. The aim is to give them back a semblance of childhood, an escape and a reminder of what being a child can be, aid workers say. 

Traditional drum beats hammered out by refugees provide a backing to dance groups of youngsters screaming their delight while others play on a swings and boys – many dressed in faded Arsenal, Manchester United and Inter Milan shirts – play football in bare feet. In classrooms art is used as a way of releasing dark experiences, many initially drawing images of torched homes, guns, dead bodies or children fleeing their villagers. 

But as a child settles, the subject of the drawings soon changes. Standing surrounded by children Gemma Parkin said: ‘Even without the risk of being killed in the conflict, South Sudan is statistically the worst place in the world to be a child. Half the children are not in school. 

Building: Children help the adults build new houses in the settlement by making bricks after fleeing the fighting in South Sudan

Worst record: South Sudan has the worst record for mothers dying in childbirth globally because 20 per cent of girls are child brides, married before turning 14 so their bodies aren’t developed enough to cope with childbirth

The country has the worst record for mothers dying in childbirth globally. That’s because 20 per cent of girls are child brides, married before turning 14 so their bodies aren’t developed enough to cope with childbirth. 

The upshot is that girls in South Sudan are more likely to die in childbirth than finish school. 

‘Those able to escape the war run away and walk through the bush for days on end, heading south for the Ugandan border, where the government is helping refugees to settle in new refugee communities. Nearly 90 per cent of arrivals are mums and their little ones. 

It feels like a safe haven and there are children everywhere, smiling, playing games, queueing up outside the classroom where Save the Children holds catch up classes. 

Playing games and having some semblance of a childhood is a crucial part of the process of overcoming their terrifying experiences. The staff notice a difference even within a week, where children start to trust again.

Laughter: At the Child Friendly Spaces, the children are given a chance to play, have fun and escape the horrors - if only for a short time

Safe haven: The staff notice a difference in the children even within a week, where children start to trust again

Recovery: Playing games and having fun is a crucial part of overcoming their terrifying experiences

Despite the horror stories there is genuine laughter and happiness in Nyumanzi, northern Uganda, where Save the Children run both a safe play area and basic schools 

Playing games and having some semblance of a childhood is a crucial part of the process of overcoming their terrifying experiences. The staff notice a difference even within a week, where children start to trust again 

‘Often they’re arriving with very few belongings, you see women balancing a suitcase on their head but you also see little kids completely naked as they arrive on trucks that the Ugandan government is using to ferry them from the border. 

‘Save the Children is teaching how to make traditional mud bricks and helping families build houses in their new settlements, and delivering basic items like bedding, mosquito nets, clothes, pots and pans and water containers.’ 

She continued: ‘We have managed to reunite 4,000 children with their families inside South Sudan and we’re working to trace the families of children that are now turning up in Uganda, having fled alone or become lost in the chaos. 

‘We find foster mums for children that have no one while we try to find their surviving relatives. It used to be much harder to trace families, in the days when you’d stick a poster up on a notice board with a picture of a missing child, hoping that someone locally would recognise them. 

Long-term trauma: Children who have been parted from their parents are damaged for the long term. When families are reunited it’s one of the most amazing things in the world, says Save the Children. But even recalling the time spent apart, the children cry just thinking about it

Alone: Boys and girls who should be learning their alphabet are caring for younger siblings as they wait in hope to be reunited with their parents. Mobile technology is improving the way the authorities can trace missing family members

Now all we need is a mobile phone to photograph to register a missing child or parent on a central database. We all use an app developed by mobile phone companies in response to this specific challenge.

‘When families are reunited it’s one of the most amazing things in the world. But even recalling the time spent apart, the children cry just thinking about it. These are the lucky families, the survivors, making up for lost time, doing what they can to rebuild their lives. But South Sudan is a country with serious wounds which will take a long time to heal. ‘  

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References

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