Testimonial

I know what I’m talking about, I nearly lost my life in the fighting, and if I died there so young and innocent…a machete was gleaming on my neck ready to have my throat cut like two of my friends, I was the 3rd in the queue for death in the bush of Alimbongo in the Lubero territories, I can never forget that day ».One morning at around 4 o’clock, our militia army was attacked by government soldiers, we were all captured alive, one of our leaders died during the exchange of fire, the loyal soldiers took us for a group that had massacred their own people that day and they were ready to kill us all in revenge, It was a brother from my church who was a military truck driver who recognised me and pleaded for us, telling them that I was his young blood brother; We were sent to the Nyaleke camp near Beni for the mixing of loyal soldiers with us militiamen and rebels. It was there that I was demobilised before the end of the mixing because the army had never been my choice – I was a child soldier. Normally, a childhood should be lived in peace and joy, but there are things we ignore as children that unfortunately catch up with us and affect our lives, our decisions and our misunderstandings as adults, often leading us to war. At first we don’t worry about the situation until we realise how serious it is when the bombs explode, the bullets crackle, the fear overwhelms us, everything in our lives seems black, school and childhood games are over, the war breaks everything, it demolishes us – there are children who have fled the war on foot more than two or five times. If only people understood the meaning of the phrase « to destroy childhood is to destroy the future of a country », war would never be the ideal way to put an end to a conflict or to impose national and international laws, I myself was a child soldier, I know what I’m talking about, I almost lost my life during the war, and if I die there so young, this young child with my name on it will certainly have been forgotten, like all the other children who died there; those who taught us the art of war, these manipulators are above all the leaders of the rebellions protected by their ethnic groups, believe me they know all about it, from the moment you walk through the door of this building of initiation to rebellion and war, even if you tell yourself to be a Spectator in the meeting, from what you hear . . believe me, you’ll end up with a Kalachnikov in your hand, even if you weren’t prepared for it », they destroy our childhoods, and to this day images of war appear in my dreams. If I work against children joining armed groups, it’s because I can’t bear to see another child go through what I went through, or even worse.