Why not? Children can do a lot more than you can imagine. Problem is, in Africa children are so restricted that we miss the opportunity to know how much they can. How long time did it take? When the differece is death, a lot of wonders can be withnessed.
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: ugnet_: "Uganda: Six-Year-Old Walks 400 Km in Rebel Captivity"
>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:58:32 EST
>
>"Uganda: Six-Year-Old Walks 400 Km in Rebel Captivity"
>
>
>Citizens:
>Do you sincerely believe that a six year old kid can walk 400 KM ? That is
>how credible the story below is! My guess is that the UPDF probably kidnapped
>the kid and tortured the hell out of the kid and then "Rescued" him from the
>"rebels"
>
>Matek
>
>Uganda: Six-Year-Old Walks 400 Km in Rebel Captivity
>
>
>Racheleri child rehabilitation centre in Lira town on Wednesday. "
>
>I got so tired and my feet were sore. I thought I was going to die, but they
>just said 'keep walking'. You can't stop or they beat you," he said.On one
>occasion, Atenon was beaten with a cane after accidentally dropping his bag. He
>witnessed the rebels killing an elderly man who had become too tired to walk.
>When Atenon's feet became too swollen to continue, they left him in the bush.
>"I slept there the whole night, and the next day the government soldiers found
>me," he said.
>
>Ells de Temmerman, the founder of Racheleri and author of Aboke Girls, an
>internationally acclaimed account of child abduction in northern Uganda, said
>Atenon was the youngest child at the centre, apart from those born in captivity.
>"When we got him, he was in a terrible state. From his route, I calculated he
>must have walked hundreds of kilometres," she told IRIN.
>
>Children at the centre who are younger than Atenon, who were born in
>captivity but recently rescued after a Ugandan army ambush, spoke of being glad to be
>out of LRA control - the only life they had known by then."It was not nice in
>the bush. They [the Ugandan army] are always chasing you with guns and you
>have to run.
>
>The sounds of the guns are loud and people die; they are all blown to pieces
>with their stomachs and blood on the grass," said five-year-old Ali, the child
>of an LRA commander and one of his "wives" - an abducted girl.Ali was found
>by the army after both his parents were killed in a gun battle between the
>soldiers and rebels. He had seen many children abducted. "They were called kuruts
>[recruits in the Acholi dialect]. They were crying because they didn't have
>any food or water. But I would always have enough food because my mother gave
>[it to] me," he said.De Temmerman said children born to the LRA were harder to
>reintegrate back into society.
>
>"His parents were killed, so we have to find a home. But his father was an
>LRA commander, so he can't stay in his mother's village. He effectively has no
>relatives - a hard thing in Africa," she told IRIN. She noted that the centre
>was seeking foster parents for Ali. "We have found them before in cases like
>Ali's," she said. "And he's a fairly normal child, all things considered."The
>Racheleri rehabilitation centre was founded in October 2003, funded by the
>Belgian government and individual sponsors.
>
>The cult-like LRA have been waging war in northern Uganda for 18 years. Led
>by a reclusive mystic, Joseph Kony, they say they want topple the government,
>which is dominated by southerners, and restore power to the Acholi people. Yet
>observers note that the victims of the group's atrocities are mostly
>defenceless civilians, usually fellow Acholis.
>
>Kony claims to have magic powers derived from the Holy Spirit and manipulates
>beliefs in witchcraft to instil fear in his followers. Virtually all LRA
>recruits are abducted children, who are brainwashed by fear and forced to commit
>violent acts.The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
>Affairs estimates that the rebels abducted 8,500 children in 2003 - many of them
>never seen since.
>
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>"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the
>people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It
>thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to
>repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by
>extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
>
>- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
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