At the age of 12, Walter was abducted by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Walter’s duty was to stand guard. He had to keep watch continuously to see whether the government army was approaching.
One day, when he was standing guard in a tree, he had to go to the toilet. He climbed out of the tree and squatted on the grass. The rebels accused him of trying to escape. He was taken to the camp, where the commander decided that Walter had to be killed, as an example to the others.The rebels hit him three times on the back of his head with an axe and left him for dead. Because it started raining that night, Walter regained consciousness. He ran away while blood was covering his eyes. Some time later, he lost consciousness again.
The next morning, the rebels found him in a different place than where they had left him for dead. ‘Someone whose brains are exposed, can’t possibly still be alive’, they judged. They thought him to be a little sorcerer and were too frightened to kill him.
Walter was dragged back to the camp, where rebels gave him a little bit of water and food. They were very surprised to see he drank and ate. They left him without any medical care. When his wounds were fly infested and smelling of pus, they had to move him out of smelling distance.
After three weeks, the government army attacked the camp. Walter was found by a soldier and was brought to hospital, where he stayed for a year. The Ugandan press called him ‘the boy who would not die’. Early in 2001, our NGO sent him to a boarding school in Gulu. Unfortunately, Walter died of head cancer on 7th March 2001. He was only 13