Mother of Abducted Daughter says Forgiveness is Key

“I prayed and grieved for seven years and seven months hoping to see my daughter come home after she was abducted by the Lords Resistance Army Rebels”, says Angelina Atyam chairperson for Concerned Parents Association in Northern Uganda. Atyam shared her story during a peace and reconciliation tour based on the Uganda perspective, which was organized MCC's peace coordinator Jon Nofziger in Canada.

It was on October 10 th , 1996, the 34 th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Uganda, that 139 school girls were abducted from St.Mary's secondary school by the rebels.

“I went to the school to find out what was happening. To my surprise I found out that my daughter was one of those abducted. Everyone was crying and the school seemed like a funeral house: clothes, beddings and other stuffs were scattered around by the rebels before they left,” she says.

An Italian nun who was the deputy headmistress of the school explained to us that she followed the rebels and pleaded with them to give her back the children. They only agreed to give her 109 children and 30 girls remained behind. The nun explained to the parents that the rebel leader threatened her that if she insisted on begging for the remaining 30 girls, he was going to kill all the girls.

“Our hearts were full of anger, bitterness and we called the rebels all sort of bad names, cursing them. All we wanted was revenge,” says Angelina.

  After 3 days of continuous mourning, praying bitterly, they thought mourning was not going to bring back their children; therefore they decided to come together and come up with ideals that were going to benefit the community.

“We thought we needed God's wisdom to deal with the situation and we could only achieve it if we built peace in our hearts by forgiving the rebels, so that we could pray in truth and spirit. It was not an easy thing to do, but we needed to open our hearts to God to help us deal with the problem and be able to come with an action oriented plan,” she says.

Angelina heard rumors from some people about the rebel who was keeping her daughter.

Through the help of other people, she managed to locate where his mother was living and she went to visit her.  

  “I said to her, ‘I know your son is keeping my daughter and I want to tell you that I forgive him for what he did and may he please return my daughter'”, she says. “I knew that this woman was not responsible for her son's actions and I felt that when I talked to her the burden I was carrying became light and forgiving him made me feel better.”

Angelina said after taking that big step of forgiveness, God opened their eyes and a few days after the mass abductions, they formed the concerned Parents Association and through this organization they have been able to reintegrate and support war affected children.

She said it was not easy to live knowing her daughter was abducted and everyday she thought about how she was doing, but she never lost faith that she was going to see her again. After 7 years of praying and waiting for a miracle to happen, God answered her prayers.

It was 2004, her daughter was lying down and she heard a voice telling her that she was going to see her people on that day, but when she woke up; she did not see any person.

“My daughter said, ‘when it was daytime the rebels told us to pack our things because they were leaving the place and if anyone attempted to escape the body guards were instructed to shoot and usually I had five body guards', ”says Angelina.

On their way, Angela's daughter heard a voice which told her to move to the left, but she hesitated and then she heard it continuously and at last she moved and continued moving to the left, no one noticed her which was not usually the case. She continued her journey with two children aged 5 and 2 years whom she was responsible for during her time with the rebels.

Angelina said about 5 thousand children were born in the bush during the period that her daughter was in captivity. Sometimes these children are not welcomed into the community and they are called all sorts of bad names.

She said reintegrating these children is the most challenging part because sometimes when these children escape and come back home, they find that some of their parents have died and the extended families cannot afford to take care of them. The only place they can live is in the camps in small huts with thatched roofs.

Angelina's daughter managed to escape that day and after moving for hours in the bush, she managed to find some nearby villages where kind hearted people brought her home.

When children who escape from the rebels come back, they are first taken to the government barracks for a few days and some are recruited directly to the army. CPA has been trying to work with the government to let these children heal and decide for themselves what they want to do.

Angelina says after 7 years and 7 months her daughter was back and out of 30 girls that were abducted 24 girls managed to escape. Of the remaining girls three were killed during the war and one was killed by the rebel leader.

There are still a lot of young children that were abducted and are still missing, many have been killed in war and a few have escaped from the rebels.

“We have been using the radio as a way of communicating to the rebels and we have asked them to come back home and when they come and are willing to confess what they have done in front of the community, we perform a traditional ceremony as a sign of reconciliation and peace building”, she says.

Angelina said the Concerned Parents Association's vision is to promote peace and protect the rights of war-affected families in Uganda through advocacy, psychosocial support and community empowerment.

She thanks MCC for their support saying their contribution has made a difference in the lives of people who are affected by war.

  “It is not easy for these children to forget the trauma they went through but CPA is working hard to help them,” Angelina says, adding that her daughter has gone back to school, is doing fine and   hopes to study medicine when she graduates.

But not everyone has been able to recover tremendously. CPA with the help of other organizations has been doing everything possible to help these children because they are the future leaders and they have the right to live a healthy life.

“The Concerned Parents Association's motto is ‘Every child is our child' and we are working hard in helping restore peace. We want a peaceful society where children's rights are respected and protected,” she says.

For those interested to learn more about the Concerned Parents Association, please visit their website at www.cpa-uganda.org . For more information on MCC's work in Uganda, visit mcc.org/Uganda.

 

Photo: Left to right - Ginah Mudenda, Laura Loewen, Angelina Atyam and Jon Nofziger. Angelina Atyam visited BC this spring to talk about her work as chairperson for CPA in Northern Uganda.

Writer Gina Mudenda is from Zambia and recently completed a year in BC with MCC's International Volunteer Exchange Program (IVEP) the counter-part to MCC SALT. One of Gina's goals was to learn more about journalism in Canada.