Heroic Teacher Who Rescued 109 Aboke Girls Still a Haunted Man
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The East African (Nairobi)
December 20, 2004
Posted to the web December 22, 2004
BARBARA AMONG
Nairobi
Ocean has never recovered from the 'side-effects' of his daring move, which saved the lives of 109. He still hears in his head the cries of the 30 girls they left behind, writes BARBARA AMONG
It was on the morning of October 10, 1996, as parents wailed in the school compound following the rebel attack on St Mary's College Aboke by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army the previous night, that one man made a move very few would have even dared to contemplate.
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John Bosco Ocean, then a teacher at the school, offered to follow the rebels in order to rescue the 139 girls abducted from the school. The consequences did not matter to him, he said.
After getting the blessing of the headmistress, Sister Alba Brulo, he together with Sister Rachelle Frasser, an Italian nun who was then deputy headmistress, set off after the dreaded rebels.
As they walked past the weeping villagers, people murmured, wondering whether this crazy man would come back; how could he dare defy Kony and his rebels? To them, this was something unheard of.
"All I remember is, I was not scared of the rebels and did not care how dangerous the mission would be. All I wanted was to rescue the girls; Sister and I were determined to go after our girls," says Ocean.
But Ocean has never recovered from the "side effects" of his daring and, most would argue, spectacularly successful action, which saved the lives of 109 girls after he and Sister Rachelle had followed the rebels for over 24 hours. He still hears in his head the cries of the 30 girls they left behind.
"I keep dreaming of rebels attacking me, but the worst is the girls pleading with me and Sister to come back for them," he says. "I dream particularly of Jacky, who cried that she was weak, had chest problems, and many more complaints I could not stand to listen to because of the pain."
Like the former abductees themselves, who now live under the shadow of Kony's brutality, the experience proved traumatic for Ocean. He says he lives in a state of irrational fear. He finds it painful talk about or read stories about the Aboke girls.
"I cannot read the book Aboke Girls. Every time I try to do so, I get freshly traumatised," he says, referring to the book by the Belgian journalist Els de Temmerman that tells the story of the abduction of the Aboke students and other child victims in northern Uganda.
Ocean says that, every morning, he wakes up to pray for the girls to come back home. His prayers have not been in vain. Out of the 30, only six are still remaining in Kony's camps.
But this is even more disturbing for Ocean, who says he wonders how the six are faring with the current attack on the rebels by the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF).
Ocean talks of the day they returned with the 109 girls they had rescued, as if it all happened a few hours ago, his voice breaking with emotion.
"When I saw the parents approach us at Otwal Railway Station, 20 kilometres from the school, where we had stopped to rest, I wondered what we would tell those whose daughters had been left behind," he said.
But Ocean did not have to do this as those among the 109 whose friends had remained behind broke the news to the parents of the victims, telling how it all happened.
He stood still and watched mothers rolling on the ground, moaning for their missing children, others screaming in anguish and calling out the names of their daughters.
During our interview recently, Ocean stared into space as he tried to hold back tears.
Had they made a mistake, had they made the right decision, he wondered. What would have been the reaction if the rebels had retained the whole group? What if they had stayed behind and continued begging for the release of all the girls? Wouldn't it have been better if they had stayed behind to talk to the top commander of the rebels - Kony himself?
Ocean says these are the questions that have disturbed him for eight years. To make it worse, the mother of Jacky, one of those left behind, died after a few months of grieving for her daughter. She had asked to be buried at Aboke School.
Ocean's nightmares started on October 12, 1996, the same night he returned with the 109 girls to the school. That night, he dreamt that the rebels had attacked again and that the other teachers had all run away and he was the only one left in the teachers' quarters, and that the rebels were looking for him.
So, in the dream, he hid in the bush about 300 metres away from the school, but the rebels saw him and again he took off, upon which he met some villagers and told them that there were rebels around. He felt a sense of anguish that he could not inform the headmistress as the school was already surrounded by rebels.
This was not just a dream, but the beginning of a traumatic series of episodes of "sleepwalking." Ocean had actually been running in his sleep and he had everyone in the village scared that the rebels had attacked again.
After about seven hours of hiding in the bush, he woke up and went back to his house. But he kept having nightmares of rebels trying to abduct and kill him, a situation he described as "flashbacks of all the horrifying stories I had heard about Kony's brutal acts."
Ocean, who had to leave the school in 2000, said that friends helped him recover. The dreadful psychological torture is not over yet, but he now experiences it only once in a while.
When the Aboke abductions happened, Ocean was in his early 20s and single. That evening, he was having a drink with friends when they heard a rumour that the rebels were coming. He looked at his watch and saw it was about 9 pm, so he decided to warn the headmistress, However, his friends stopped him, saying he might be mistaken for a rebel by the soldiers guarding the school.
But he insisted and went to the house of the Aboke parish priest, 100 metres from the school gate. To his disappointment, there was no response from the house, so he informed his neighbours and went to his house.
At about 6:30 the following morning, he was awakened by screams and rushed to the school compound to find out what had happened. He met Sister Alba Brulo and Sister Rachelle Frasser, who asked him whether he would accompany her to the bush. He readily agreed.
It was about 7am and the ground was slippery as it had rained. The rebels had not used the road but because it was muddy, they were able to follow their footprints, stopping constantly for fear of landmines.
After about two hours of walking, they reached Iceme village, where they met some villagers who told them the direction in which the rebels had gone.
They continued following the rebels; after about five hours, they came to a river crossing. Ocean had to carry Sister Rachelle across. A few kilometres farther on, they met an old woman who told them that the rebels were less than a kilometre ahead.
They reached the Omiri hills, still in Iceme village, where they found a small blue Good News bible that belonged to one of the students. Sister Rachelle picked it up, and they walked up the hill, where they saw the rebels from a distance. Sister Rachelle wanted to call out to them but Ocean objected, saying the rebels would shoot at them.
As they went down the hill, they were met by three rebels whom they ignored. In seconds, a group of rebels had jumped out of hiding and were pointing their guns at them. They were in a large sesame plantation.
"Mikono juu [hands up]," they shouted. It was then that fear seized Ocean.
"It was a long line of rebels carrying different types of guns," Ocean said. "I tried to make out the end of the line but fear had made my neck stiff.
"'Today, we shall kill you all,' said their commander, his face distorted with rage. I had led the way and they asked me why I was following them, but I found myself unable to speak and I referred them to Sister Rachelle.
"'We have come for the girls you abducted, they are government children and they are young girls. So we beg you that you help us and give us the children back,' was what Sister Rachelle said."
At that point, two boys searched them and found Ush700,000 ($400) that Sister Rachelle had carried for them. She told them so, but they rejected the money.
A commander who introduced himself to them as Lagira told them why they had targeted Aboke. One of the reasons was that they wanted to teach the then Resident District Commissioner of Apac a lesson for "despising" Kony. The rebels then began walking off, and Ocean and Sister Rachelle followed after them.
As they walked, Sister Rachelle told Ocean to repeat to Lagira why they had followed them. Lagira kept promising that he would release the girls, at "the right time."
After about an hour of walking, they reached Otwal Railway Station, where the Aboke girls were separated from the rest of the abductees, but the process was interrupted by a UPDF helicopter gunship hovering overhead. Everyone hid until the helicopter went away.
Ocean narrates the rest of the story with ease till he gets the moment when they had to leave the 30 girls behind.
Suddenly, his energy seems to desert him and his face turns grey, he stammers and keeps losing the thread of his narrative.
"It was in a large homestead, and the girls were made to sit a few metres from us, they could not hear what we were discussing, but we were urging the rebels to release all the girls."
But the commander was adamant and even scratched the number 30 on the ground. But he would give no reason why the 30 had to remain behind.
As they argued, the 30 girls were separated from the rest and brought over to them.
"These 30 are remaining" Lagira announced.
Ocean says tears rolled down his face and he stood watching helplessly as the rebels pounced on the girls and beat them for crying.
"I saw Sister kneel down before Lagira, who barked at her that he was not her God for her to kneel before him and threatened to retain all the girls if she continued to beg," he says.
"Then one of the commanders came to me and said, 'Teacher, it's becoming dark and it will not be safe for you to go back now. You will have to wait till tomorrow.'"
Ocean immediately turned to Sister Rachelle and told her they should leave before the rebels changed their minds.
He then got the nod from Lagira and led the way. They had gone barely a kilometre when they heard gunshots. He later learnt that Lagira had sent some rebels to harass them.
"Eventually, we reached a village, which we later learnt was called Ajokara, bordering Lango and Acholi, but everyone who saw us ran away.
"I then found a hut and asked Sister to remain there with the girls while I tried to find the local authority in the area."
As he roamed the village looking for an official's house, he heard some people coming towards him, so he hid in a small bush by the roadside. When they reached where he was, he jumped out and said "It's me, a teacher from St Mary's Aboke. Do not run, I have been following the girls," but no one stopped.
Ocean eventually saw a fire some distance away and walked in that direction until he came to a compound. But before he could say anything, everyone took off, leaving only an old man.
"I decided to greet him and explain myself to him," he says. "He then told me he had lost his wife and asked me to follow him inside the hut, where the body was, and asked me to touch it to prove that I was a good person; I then said a short prayer with him.
"The others, who had run off to the bush, started coming back and two boys volunteered to take me to the local council official's home, but on the way there, they started to doubt me, saying I could be a rebel spy and that I should take them to where the girls were with Sister Rachelle."
This was another moment Ocean will not soon forget, for he had lost his way and took them to several different homes. The boys threatened to kill him if he was lying and told him to describe the hut where he had left the girls, but all he remembered was that it was a new hut.
They finally found the hut, where Sister Rachelle was standing guard at the door. Several girls had fainted, crammed as they were into a the hut could hardly accommodate 10 people, leave alone 109.
They spent the night at the official's residence, where they were given two big huts, where Sister Rachelle spent the night with the girls in one hut and Ocean had another group in another hut.
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"In the morning of October 12, as we walked through the village, everyone stopped and stood staring at us, lamenting the number of students Kony had abducted," said Ocean. "At Otwal, they found their parents, who had received the news that they were on their way, waiting for them."
It was then that Ocean realised that he was wearing a sweater that was too small for him. His whole body was aching and he was bare-foot.
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