KIDNAPPED FROM FARM FIELD

At 8:00 a.m., then 12-year-old Christopher Okello, his brother and father were working in the family’s small field, tending crops of green vegetables, maize and cassava, outside a displacement camp in Northern Uganda.

They had no idea the rebels were near and had no time to escape or defend themselves. A dozen rebels captured Chris and his brother, leaving their father behind, unharmed.

The rebels then forced Chris to watch as they killed his brother, who was only 17. It was common, he said, for the rebels to use such killings as scare tactics – to show child soldiers what would happen to them if they ignored commands.

"If they abducted three, they made sure they killed one so that the other two would know that any time he could be killed, too.” Chris said.

He was forced join a group of adult soldiers; he was the youngest. They then joined a larger rebel group near Sudan, which included about 50 other children. The rebels continued the use of fear and brainwashing to manipulate Chris into carrying out the militia’s acts.

Over the four years Chris spent as a child soldier, he was forced to abduct, beat, loot and fight other forces. The will to escape never left Chris throughout all of his struggles. Chris escaped during the night, during the chaos of a Ugandan government ambush.

When he escaped, he went directly to the government’s barracks and surrendered, because did not know where he was. These army officials helped him find his way home.

When he returned home, he discovered that in his absence, his father died.

“It was my grandmother who got me … I had no one to take care of me, so when she saw me she was very happy.”

Soon after returning home, he spent time at the World Vision Center in Gulu, Uganda. The center provides counseling for former child soldiers. Now, Chris, 19, resides in his former village with his grandmother, where he farms and attends the Gomotong Community Peace Building.

 Copyright 2007 Y-Press