UGANDA

LRA survivors

“They no longer have any bearings, no more family. They have no notion of the respect due to them, nor of the love they deserve. We try to reintegrate them in everyday life, to help them forget their ravaged childhood.” Rosemary

Abstracts

"Uganda is a nation with a reputation for welcoming refugees fleeing the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). I didn’t understand right off that I was sinking into the heart of darkness. (…) The HCR camp in Rhino, directly overseen by the OPM (Office of the Prime Minister), was located several hours from Arua in an absolutely desolate zone far from anywhere else: 'an open-air prison', despaired the pretty Sabela.

(…) The LRA is one of the world’s oldest and fiercest underground movements. The extortion methods used by LRA troops are invariable: the rebels attack small towns, villages or isolated farms, and carry out murders, rapes, lootings. (…) In the Acholi district of Kampala, LRA survivors shatter pebbles to get by. A fifty-'liter' container of gravel is purchased for the price of a cigarette."

Extract from Zoé Zoé, Femmes du mondes, 2007, Éditions Gallimard