Carol Natukunda And Chris Ocowun
9 December 2007
Kampala — It was Easter Sunday. They had just sat down for a huge meal, when a gang of armed men attacked. Her husband was shot twice by a bearded man wearing a mask and an overcoat.
Her children yelled and begged for mercy, but one assassin stepped forward, pulled out a butcher's knife and stabbed her eldest child. Seven years later, Irene Amito, 35, believes her dead husband and child come to visit her. "I see them every day... I see them," she mutters. "In fact, last night my husband came dressed in a blood-stained shirt. He told me I should prepare his supper. When I turned round, he had vanished."
In her heart of hearts, Amito knows her loved ones are dead. The way they died is still fresh and vivid in her mind. She sees the assailant dragging her husband by the neck out of the house, his slippers falling off one by one, his body absorbing punches and kicks. There are gunshots, and then silence. There is blood on her husband's clothes and in the compound. The children are screaming for her to get help, but Amito is shaking with fear. She watches helplessly as the man goes for her child, ignoring her high-pitched scream: "You murderer!"
In northern Uganda, wives without husbands, mothers with fatherless children and children without parents are struggling to start all over again and to heal the wounds and the trauma caused by the 20-year Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) war, which forced over 1.2 million people into squalid camps. With peace returning, people are slowly going back to their homes, only to be haunted by their deceased relatives. Many of those who were displaced by the conflict and are now returning home say they have had mysterious experiences like seeing ghosts walking through the house or on footpaths and then disappearing. They say they hear the sounds of their deceased children playing in the backyard late at night.
"I don't want to think I am dreaming. It is real," says Amito, leaning back on the mud and wattle wall of her hut. "Even the other day, I heard my dead son whistling the way he used to while grazing the goats or fetching water. Maybe he didn't die. Or perhaps God sends him back to see us." The night that her husband and son were killed, Amito together with her two toddlers, fled to Awer Camp a few kilometres away from their home in Pabbo village. However, with the resettlement exercise, they have returned home and are building their lives afresh. Amito says meeting her loved ones again, even if it is only for a little while, is a good thing. The only problem, she says, is that she can't concentrate on her daily activities, much less take care of her teenagers properly. "I have no peace of mind. I can't sleep well, I am always afraid and overwhelmed," she says.
Kevin Adokorach, 32, lives close to Amito. This single mother of one has learnt to do tasks that used to be the preserve of men, and even put up her new hut single-handedly. However, she is not yet brave enough to sleep in it. She has shifted very few household items from the displaced people's camp to her home, but she still goes back to the camp at night because she feels safer there. She goes home during the day to cultivate or weave baskets for sale, and at sunset, she walks back, afraid to counter the "invisible man" during the night.
"You see a very tall man dressed in an overcoat waving his arms at you, only for him to disappear before your eyes. He waves his arms in a strange manner and you can't tell whether he is calling for help or warning you of some danger ahead," Adokorach narrates. She is convinced that this man is one of her relatives who passed away. "Why do you think the ghosts target me?" she asks, with anxiety written all over her face. "I told our camp leader one evening to escort me home, but that day, we didn't see anything. The man comes when I am alone. It is frightening."
Although her husband was killed when they had already fled to the camp, Adokorach lost her mother and seven siblings one night when the rebels raided her village. She only managed to escape death by hiding under the bed. Now, although she is grateful to God that she is alive, looking at any bed is difficult for her. No matter where she sees a wooden bed, even at the carpenter's, she develops goose pimples. The strange man who stands in her way is not Adokorach's only problem. "Sometimes you hear the sound of furniture being moved in the house, even when there is nobody," she laments. Medical experts say people like Adokorach and Amito could be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). "They are not being haunted by the dead. It is a mental health issue," says Dr. Margaret Mungherera, adding that over 10% of any population which is in conflict will end up with PTSD.
For families to completely take a bold step towards resettlement, they need to be healed emotionally, before they can acknowledge their losses and move on. Wholeness can only come to them after the anger or the pain because of the people they lost has dissipated. "It is not that there are ghosts in Gulu. It is just trauma, says the Resident District Commissioner, Walter Ochora. Because the prolonged insurgency has caused a lot of trauma, the Government has included a big counselling component in the northern Uganda rehabilitation programme. "The Government has constructed a very big mental hospital in Gulu and it is already operational. Over 9,000 mental cases have already been handled by the hospital. Even aid organisations like World Vision are embarking on serious counselling," Ochora explains.
In Kitgum District as well, many believe the spirits of people massacred by rebels of the LRA have started haunting the families that have returned to their homes following the lull in the war. "We have come back to our ancestral homes but our major fear is settling in those places where people were killed in big numbers because their spirits have already started haunting us," says Charles Salaama Okeny, the Katum Parish LC3 chairman.
"One night the spirits of our relatives who were killed by the rebels attacked my aunt and began strangling her," he says. "They demanded for food and drinks, saying they were hungry. They said they had been killed for no reason." The family had to perform traditional rituals to "appease the spirits" and "free our aunt from bondage". Presided over by the elders, the ceremony involved offering goats, chicken, millet bread and kwete (local brew). Mungherera says people should not be discouraged from carrying out their cultural practices as this can give them psychological satisfaction and expedite healing. That explains why Okeny is at peace. "Since we gave the spirits these things, they have stopped disturbing the people around here," he says. The 34-year-old councillor insists that rituals must be performed before the people finally return to their original homes.
"Enough goats, sheep and chicken need to be bought by the Government and humanitarian agencies and given to us to perform such rituals," Okeny states. Celestino Langoya, 64, who performed the ritual for Okeny's aunt, explains that in the Acholi culture, appeasing spirits of the dead is nothing new, but it has now been complicated by the fact that sacrificial animals - goats, sheep and chicken are in short supply as they were stolen by the rebels.
Langoya, who hails from Katum village and is currently living in a classroom because of the lack of grass to build a good hut, says: "Although life in this village is better compared to the living conditions in the bigger camps, we still fear the spirits."
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