The face of courage

The story of this man is both inspiring and humbling. It also makes one feel truly grateful that we live in such comfort and safety, that we may never be called to prevail against such evil.

It was in the night when I saw a number of torches flash at me. I was commanded to lie down facing the ground. As I did so, the rebels began raiding other houses around me.

They arrested many - tying, and lying the victims on the ground in three lines. Two men were tied and forced onto the ground where their heads were joined together. The rebels tried to force me to pick up a log and hit their heads but I refused so one came for me with a knife and cut off my left ear. He accused me of being a government soldier and said that I would be finished off if I failed to smash their heads.

But then, they started smashing the people's heads themselves. I was put in the middle as they smashed the people's heads. At about 0700 in the morning, they led 35 of us into the bush. About five kms (approximately three miles) from the scene they began taunting me, saying that I was big-headed, and because I refused to respect them I would be cooked alive.

They kept on beating us and they denied food or water from us. We complained saying we were hungry and thirsty. They stopped raping the women that were in our group and acted as though they were going to let us eat and drink. The ladies were forced to boil water in a big tin.

Shortly after this they announced that we would eat the government soldier - supposedly, me. For a long time, the rebels took turns at beating us men with hot metal, and raping the girls. I was already spiritually dead.

They returned to me at some point and re-tied me before chopping off my lips. They then cut off my right ear and my nose. I was bleeding. I could not cry anymore and for two days I couldn't drink water.

The rebels debated for two days whether or not I was to be killed. They told me I was a bad omen and so must suffer. My wounds had begun to rot. The smell was so bad. But still they refused me any treatment.

Then on the seventh day, because I never expected to live, I insulted their commander in the hope that in revenge he would kill me. He just ordered his soldiers to cut off my hands. They did.

That evening I remember seeing my fellow female abductees crying. One of them had been killed and another had had her breast cut off. The rebels kept telling me that I would soon be dead. They picked out two of the starving, tired girls that could hardly even walk from being repeatedly raped and ordered them to take me home.

The three of us were helpless. The girls were crying, inconsolably, when some government soldiers found us following a further night spent out in the open. They took us straight to the nearest hospital where we received treatment. On reaching hospital, my wife came to see me with my parents, relatives and friends.
LRA victim, Ochola John
Ochola John was deformed by rebels from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army

They found it hard to see me as a human being. I was rotting, smelly and deformed. My wife started taking care of me in the hospital. I had asked her to leave me alone, explaining that because I was deformed, I couldn't be her husband anymore.

She refused. Over and over she rejected my request, saying that the baby she was carrying for us, the child we were expecting, needed a father. She kept saying that I hadn't asked to be deformed like that and someday God would let me know why I had been put through such an ordeal. My wife, Grace, with time helped to suppress my terrible feelings and thoughts.
Ochola John and his wife Grace

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