Children and War

Stories

Luay  (14): Iraq
We met Luay in Basra after the end of the Gulf-war. He lived in a half-ruined house and his parents asked us if we could talk to him because he had increasingly isolated himself. He hardly saw his good friends anymore and he had dropped out of school. They said that this had gradually developed after the bombing of their city.

Elizabeth, Uganda
We met Elizabeth in the main church in Kampala in the spring 1986, few weeks after a new government had replaced the terror-regime of Milton Obote. She was part of a group of young girls who hade been kidnapped by the government soldiers during the guerrilla war in Luwero north of Kampala.

Miriam (11): Somalia
Miriam had escaped from the search of an opposing clan going for weapons and armed enemies. When they couldn’t find anything they got desperate and started torturing Miriam’s mother. She was nine months pregnant.

Sabwenge (10): Rwanda
We meet Sabwenge and his siblings some weeks after the massacre in Rwanda in 1994. Sabwenge means “clever”. Sabwenge escaped by foot with his parents from Nyamata to Goma, Zaire. Both of his parents died of disease a couple of days later. He thought they were supposed to be safe in Zaire.