The following is a heart-wrenching excerpt about war-torn Africa, and its effects on local populations, expecially women and childrem.
From allAfrica:
"SOUTH Sudan residents in the Western Equatorial state have told heart-rending ordeals of their encounters with LRA rebels who have forced them to kill their children and siblings or face death. A woman, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, explained how she lost her two children.
"They appeared in my compound carrying pangas and pieces of woods on December 29, 2008. It was around 8:00pm. They found me with my two children. They gave me a big piece of wood and told me to kill my children.
"I killed one at gunpoint. It was very painful. Instead of killing my second child, I hit one LRA bandit and another one immediately killed my child. I made an alarm and they ran away," the woman narrated in an article published by the Sudan Tribune."
From allAfrica:
"SOUTH Sudan residents in the Western Equatorial state have told heart-rending ordeals of their encounters with LRA rebels who have forced them to kill their children and siblings or face death. A woman, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, explained how she lost her two children.
"They appeared in my compound carrying pangas and pieces of woods on December 29, 2008. It was around 8:00pm. They found me with my two children. They gave me a big piece of wood and told me to kill my children.
"I killed one at gunpoint. It was very painful. Instead of killing my second child, I hit one LRA bandit and another one immediately killed my child. I made an alarm and they ran away," the woman narrated in an article published by the Sudan Tribune."
We in the West do not realise how lucky we are - we aren't scavaging for scraps of food to feed our children; we don't live in fear that we or our neighbours will disappear in the middle of the night, never to be seen again; we do not live in the fear that we will be killed or forced to kill in order to survive.
The strength of these people is amazing ..... and we should be looking to do more, not turning our backs. I perosnally, cannot for one instant imaging myself in their situation not imaging what I would do just to survive.
In my cosy world, it is impossible to imagine the Holocaust, Darfur, or any other situation where death is so present, and the strong core of humanity shows itself. I know the mother of a suicide who fully believes she killed her child. There is little that is more wrenching than the death of a child, but maybe this story presents this. Thank you for putting this on the web, an act of not turning one's face.
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