Stephen Ssenkaaba
4 January 2009
Kampala — She was a happy active young school girl when Kony's rebels abducted her.
It is an encounter that completely changed her life but not the resolve to live.
SHE sat quietly and looked at us intently. Sarah Lanyero, the haggard young woman, seemed to say something even without uttering a single word. Her blank white eyes dangled inside her emaciated sockets. She stood up and ambled towards her room - to sleep.
"She has a lot on her mind," Florence Athieno, her guardian, says. Lanyero is a former child soldier; one of the victims of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commander, Joseph Kony's atrocities in northern Uganda. She is a mother to a 10-year-old girl, Atim. She is also HIV-positive.
Lanyero was only 12 years and had just lost parents in war when the LRA rebels attacked the school truck in which she and her schoolmates were travelling. She was in Senior Two at Sacred Heart Secondary School, Gulu.
"We were returning home for holidays when a group of gun-wielding rebels stopped our lorry at Pabbo junction in Gulu," she says.
The year was 1992. And the long journey to Lanyero's suffering began here. We were ordered to disembark. Those who tried to escape were shot dead by the rebels," she says.
Lanyero and her friends were forced to abandon their property. They walked several kilometres under the watchful eyes of the rebels to Apaa, along the Uganda-Sudan boarder. Life for the youngster and her friends would never be the same again.
Wives in the bush
"Once in the bush, we underwent serious military training. Oti Lagony, one of the senior commanders, told us that we had to fight to save our region which had undergone suffering at the hands of the Olalo (herdsmen) UPDF. We were also distributed as wives to LRA commanders."
Lanyero became the wife of Okello Smart, a high-ranking official. I was one of over the 20 wives owned by this man," she says.
"We used to sleep with him in turns. Okello was a rude, dark and ugly man. I did not like him. He demanded sex regularly. Whenever I refused, he threatened to kill me. I had no choice but to give in."
She would later become pregnant with his child. As one of Okello's wives, Lanyero stayed home to clean and prepare food. Once in a while, she went to the bush with the rest of the young female soldiers to fight.
"Life was hard in the bush. We went several days without food and walked long distances carrying guns and our personal belongings. We swam across big rivers to safety. Whenever we ran out of food, we would raid a home, kill the occupants and take whatever we needed."
After a few years, killing became second nature to Lanyero. "At first it was difficult, but after a few years, I got used. We were always asked to kill our fellow fighters-those who were caught escaping. I always carried a huge gun and never feared to use it.
We often fought bare chest, with our blouses wrapped diagonally across our torsos. Many times, we faced off with the UPDF. And we often killed them. If you shot a UPDF, you would remove his uniform and army pips and present them to the commanders. You would then be promoted."
In one of the encounters with the enemy, Lanyero was shot in the upper thigh, sustaining a deep wound. In October 1997, she nearly lost her life.
"Okello accused me along with five of my co-wives of being insubordinate.
He reported us to the high command. We were to be hang or shot. We were only saved by another commander who lied that Kony had exonerated us."
We had a good relationship with the Sudan government. Sometimes we would exchange with them captured children for guns. They would also supply us with food."
Fighting under Kony Lanyero describes Kony as a very interesting man. He is a God-fearing man," she says. "A born-again Christian.
"He always encouraged us to pray before going for battle. He also told us to pray so that we could one day eat bread like Waganda. He is a respected man. We used to call him our father. And it was not easy to meet him. He has so many women.
"Whenever new abductees were brought in, he would be the first to choose a wife. He only took the beautiful ones.
Everyone in the bush revered him and whenever he came to inspect the rebels, we would welcome him as a president. Kony is a rich man. He has property and often travelled to Europe."
Infected with HIV
For about five years, Lanyero lived under difficult conditions. Like many girls her age, she was sexually abused. She had unprotected sex with Okello, her imposed husband.
Early in 1998, she discovered that she was pregnant. "Okello was angry with me and threatened to kill me," she says.
Seven months pregnant and limping from her bullet wound, Lanyero presented herself to Okello. This was the beginning of the end of her narrow escape.
"I told him I was ready to die. He said my day had not come. I could have shot him, but I did not have a gun," Lanyero says
When the unsuspecting commanders sent her and other girls to fetch water at a nearby borehole, Lanyero limped her way to safety.
"We threw the jerrycans away and ran," she recalls. The commanders came after them, but the heavily-pregnant Lanyero hid under a green umbrella tree and stayed for three days.
A Good Samaritan transported her to Juba, where she met Fr. Edward Kose, who took her to Juba Teaching Hospital for treatment.
"They operated upon me and removed the bullet from my thigh. Later that year, she gave birth to a beautiful baby whom she named Atim.
Lanyero spent about two months at St. Joseph's Mission in Juba under the care of Fr. Kose. The priest later enrolled her in Ijalaba SS for a year.
In 2002, she returned to Gulu under the Government amnesty. She was enrolled at the Gulu Support War Children Association. It is here that she discovered that she had HIV.
Devastated, she enrolled in Gulu High School where she completed her O' level. She later took a nursing course at Lacor Hospital, but dropped out when her sister died in a car accident.
"I had to drop out to take care of my sister's child and my own," she says.
Survived by her younger brother, a niece and her own child, Lanyero started a new life.
With the help of Fr. Kose, she came to Kampala and briefly worked as a shop-keeper before being taken up by the Love Ministry, a home for abandoned and orphaned children.
It is here that Atim and Amama, her niece, are being taken care of. It is here that she also gets support to get drugs.
Today, she lives under the guardianship of Pastor Florence Athieno, the founder of this home. Despite all the knocks she has taken in her life, Lanyero is happy to be alive.
Looking at how far she has come, Athieno is also happy that frail as she is, Lanyero is responding well to treatment.
"I hope she recovers soon," she says.
Athieno is planning to help Lanyero set up a clinic once she has recovered.
Lanyero might be settled now, but the events of the past 16 years on her life have left terrible scars on her conscience.
"Sometimes I hear voices and see dark bloody images. The voices are powerful and compel me to look for blood. When I am annoyed, I prefer locking myself in a room," she says.
It has been a long tormenting journey for this young lady, but one that Lanyero (whose name means laughter) is glad to sometimes laugh about.
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