Victims of Kony's LRA try to rebuild their lives in South Sudan - Radio Netherlands

Families in South Sudan are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives now that attacks by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been declining.

By Raymond Baguma, Nzara, with additional reporting by Joseph Nashion, Yambio

Sungu Mizele, a Congolese national living in Yambio, in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, earns a living at the local town market, selling the fruit and vegetables that she grows in her backyard. On a good day, when she has fresh supplies, she can earn up to 31 dollars. She may not have much, but as someone who once lived in the Makpandu settlement camp, she can support herself and her late sister’s six children.

Her family’s story is like that of the thousands of others in the camp, which houses some 5,7000 refugees. The LRA attacked Mizele’s home in Dungu, in north-eastern DRC, in November 2010. Mizele and her six nieces and nephews were released, unharmed, but her elder sister was shot dead as she struggled to flee from an LRA commander who tried to rape her.

While living at the settlement camp, Mizele was determined to give her family a better life. She kept aside some of the food and cooking oil rations given by relief agencies and resold them. She also scavenged in the bushes near the camp for firewood that she could sell. Eventually, she was able to earn enough to rent a grass-thatched hut in Yambio, some 44 kilometres from the camp.

“I moved out of the camp and came to town where I started a small business for survival and to support the kids,” Mizele says.

Returning home
In Nzara, a frontier outpost in Western Equatoria state, other families have returned home to cultivate maize, pineapples, sorghum and peanuts. At local trading centres, business is brisk. Groceries and local pubs, which sell imports from Uganda, are open till late, powered by solar or diesel generators.

Life here has been more peaceful of late. The LRA Crisis Tracker Report, released on 5 February by the United States NGOs Invisible Children and Resolve, shows that out of the 275 attacks carried out by the LRA in 2012, none was carried out in South Sudan (225 occurred in DRC and the remainder took place in CAR). Many here believe the drop in attacks was largely due to the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) opening a base in Nzara in 2010.

“We are glad that Uganda came. Without them, we would not have planted our crops and harvested,” says Reverend Samuel Enosa Peni, of the Episcopal Church of Sudan.

In addition to the Ugandan military presence here, the Regional Task Force (RTF), which was created last September by the African Union, has been tasked with hunting down the LRA leaders in the region. The RTF comprises of troops from South Sudan, DRC, CAR and Uganda.

Counselling needed
Peni, who is also the bishop of the Nzara diocese, says that the local community is still grappling with the traumatic effects of the conflict and the church is counselling them.

“We were born in war, grew up in war, and rehabilitation needs to be done,” Peni says. “People have no hope for the future and our job as the church is to reach out to them. Many have died, but those of us who are alive need to forget the past and go forward.”

Former abductees often require psychological counselling before they are integrated back into the community. Many of them are traumatized by the rejection they face upon returning home, he says.

At St. Daniel Comboni Primary School in Nzara, missionaries look after formerly abducted children. Also run by the Comboni missionaries, the Rainbow Community Centre provides counselling and therapy to mothers infected with HIV/AIDS during LRA captivity.

Still traumatized
Raphael Reba lives with the fact that her family may never accept her and her son. His father is one of the LRA rebels who abducted her seven years ago from her home in Gangura Payam, which lies south-east of Yambio. She was forced to become part of the LRA and was handed over to a rebel commander, who she calls David, whose child she later conceived. In 2010, she and David escaped from LRA captivity with their child. He returned to Uganda after surrendering, and she and her son came to her home in South Sudan.

Today, Reba lives in her brother’s house with her now four-year-old son. She cultivates other people’s gardens for a living. Still traumatized by the atrocities she was forced to commit – including being ordered to kill two babies and drink their blood – Reba says she is ostracized by her own family. Even her father cannot accept her or her son.

“If it [the insulting] continues, I will walk to the UPDF camp in Nzara so that they can take me to the father of my child,” Reba says.

She has undergone counselling from different NGOs here, but is worried that even though her son is innocent and undeserving of the anger directed at him, he will be forced to endure it as he grows up.

Source: IPS 

Families in South Sudan are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives now that attacks by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been declining.

By Raymond Baguma, Nzara, with additional reporting by Joseph Nashion, Yambio

Sungu Mizele, a Congolese national living in Yambio, in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, earns a living at the local town market, selling the fruit and vegetables that she grows in her backyard. On a good day, when she has fresh supplies, she can earn up to 31 dollars. She may not have much, but as someone who once lived in the Makpandu settlement camp, she can support herself and her late sister’s six children.

Her family’s story is like that of the thousands of others in the camp, which houses some 5,7000 refugees. The LRA attacked Mizele’s home in Dungu, in north-eastern DRC, in November 2010. Mizele and her six nieces and nephews were released, unharmed, but her elder sister was shot dead as she struggled to flee from an LRA commander who tried to rape her.

While living at the settlement camp, Mizele was determined to give her family a better life. She kept aside some of the food and cooking oil rations given by relief agencies and resold them. She also scavenged in the bushes near the camp for firewood that she could sell. Eventually, she was able to earn enough to rent a grass-thatched hut in Yambio, some 44 kilometres from the camp.

“I moved out of the camp and came to town where I started a small business for survival and to support the kids,” Mizele says.

Returning home
In Nzara, a frontier outpost in Western Equatoria state, other families have returned home to cultivate maize, pineapples, sorghum and peanuts. At local trading centres, business is brisk. Groceries and local pubs, which sell imports from Uganda, are open till late, powered by solar or diesel generators.

Life here has been more peaceful of late. The LRA Crisis Tracker Report, released on 5 February by the United States NGOs Invisible Children and Resolve, shows that out of the 275 attacks carried out by the LRA in 2012, none was carried out in South Sudan (225 occurred in DRC and the remainder took place in CAR). Many here believe the drop in attacks was largely due to the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) opening a base in Nzara in 2010.

“We are glad that Uganda came. Without them, we would not have planted our crops and harvested,” says Reverend Samuel Enosa Peni, of the Episcopal Church of Sudan.

In addition to the Ugandan military presence here, the Regional Task Force (RTF), which was created last September by the African Union, has been tasked with hunting down the LRA leaders in the region. The RTF comprises of troops from South Sudan, DRC, CAR and Uganda.

Counselling needed
Peni, who is also the bishop of the Nzara diocese, says that the local community is still grappling with the traumatic effects of the conflict and the church is counselling them.

“We were born in war, grew up in war, and rehabilitation needs to be done,” Peni says. “People have no hope for the future and our job as the church is to reach out to them. Many have died, but those of us who are alive need to forget the past and go forward.”

Former abductees often require psychological counselling before they are integrated back into the community. Many of them are traumatized by the rejection they face upon returning home, he says.

At St. Daniel Comboni Primary School in Nzara, missionaries look after formerly abducted children. Also run by the Comboni missionaries, the Rainbow Community Centre provides counselling and therapy to mothers infected with HIV/AIDS during LRA captivity.

Still traumatized
Raphael Reba lives with the fact that her family may never accept her and her son. His father is one of the LRA rebels who abducted her seven years ago from her home in Gangura Payam, which lies south-east of Yambio. She was forced to become part of the LRA and was handed over to a rebel commander, who she calls David, whose child she later conceived. In 2010, she and David escaped from LRA captivity with their child. He returned to Uganda after surrendering, and she and her son came to her home in South Sudan.

Today, Reba lives in her brother’s house with her now four-year-old son. She cultivates other people’s gardens for a living. Still traumatized by the atrocities she was forced to commit – including being ordered to kill two babies and drink their blood – Reba says she is ostracized by her own family. Even her father cannot accept her or her son.

“If it [the insulting] continues, I will walk to the UPDF camp in Nzara so that they can take me to the father of my child,” Reba says.

She has undergone counselling from different NGOs here, but is worried that even though her son is innocent and undeserving of the anger directed at him, he will be forced to endure it as he grows up.

Source: IPS