Released after 9 years!
One more Aboke girl free
"Is Sylvia Alaba one of the Aboke girls?", the Lira division commandander asks me on the phone. The question makes me shiver. "Yes, she is. She was given to Kony as a wife. Rumours circulated that she had been killed". And then colonel Etiang breaks the incredible news. "We have just liberated her. She is in Kitgum and will be brought over by helicopter, together with her baby and babysitter. Can you give her some decent clothes?"
It takes me a while to fully grasp the news. I run to Grace, the main character in my book, who's helping out at the centre. Grace is overwhelmed by emotons and shouts out her happiness. Then she hugs me "Sylvia was my classmate", she sobs out. "We shared the same desk en we were together in Sudan."
The helicopter is scheduled to land at 5 pm. Sylvia’s mother, who has heard the news on the radio, has rushed to the rehabilitation centre. We have planned to welcome her at the airstrip in large numbers. But the helicopter lands in the middle of army barracks and I am the only one to welcome her.
She is walking in my direction, her baby clutched in her arms. When she is that close, that I can recognize her face, I am startled. This is the face of an old woman, branded for life. A shrivelled breast hangs out of her torn dress. I ameven more shocked by the sight of her baby and babysitter. The child is a skeletal baby with large frightened eyes, like a terrified little monkey. And the babysitter is staring straight through me. Only God knows what these three poor creatures are feeling or thinking.
I take them with me in my car and together we drive to the centre. The arrival scene at the centre is indelibly printed in my memory. Her mother, who runs up to her daughter in tears and embraces Sylvia. Sylvia, who quickly breaks loose from her mother and then pushes her away. Rage? Fear? Shame? Wat is going on in Sylvia's mind? It is all getting too much for her mother. Het wordt de moeder teveel. She collapses in the arms of the deputy district leader.
All night long the crowd keeps on growing. From miles around people are coming
to greet the Aboke girl. But Sylvia is just sitting there, a sad smile on her face, staring absently in front of her, apparently emotionless. Not a word passes her lips. Even when we finally manage to get her father - who's in Kasese - on the phone, she refuses to talk to him. After nine years in the bush this must be something like returning from a different planet and realizing in disbelief that the world has kept on turning.
from Els De Temmerman's journal
3 June 2005