Margaret Awoi, Uganda, "Falling into rebel hands five times within eight months was the easier part"

Widow and mother of four, Margaret Awoi, 48, has been abducted five times by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. She told IRIN why falling into rebel hands was easier than living with HIV, which was diagnosed in 2004 after her deceased husband succumbed to it.

"Many people in northern Uganda have been abducted at least once in their lives, but has anyone else been abducted five times within eight months? I was captured five times between February 2003 and October of the same year.

"In February 2003 my two children and I were farming when the rebels appeared. They captured me, took my sandals, then shoved two water-filled 20-litre jerry cans at me and demanded I carry them both on my head. The hiding children were undetected. Later that day the UPDF [Ugandan army] ambushed the rebels and I escaped unharmed.

"The rebels struck again about five weeks later and took two bicycles, and goats. I deceived them and escaped. They struck a third time four weeks later and took me hostage from my father’s house. I was horrified. They ordered me to carry a 60kg bag of grain, joking about having someone strong and beautiful to move their food. Three days later the rebel troop was ambushed, allowing me to escape.

"The one in October 2003 was most memorable. A faction of rebels had ambushed a group of us [villagers] minutes before three military fighter jets flew over my father’s home. We scampered away. The rebels panicked and melted into the nearby greenery. I had just escaped the fifth abduction.

“The following day my family fled to a settlement camp in Patonga. I felt I would be secure. Then my husband - once a Uganda People’s Defence Forces [Ugandan army] soldier - returned home weak and sickly. He died five months later of an undiagnosed illness. Shortly after that I began experiencing fatigue and caught many opportunistic illnesses easily. I was treated for malaria but remained sick. Then a friend advised me to have an HIV/AIDS test. I tested positive. Newly widowed, that result was worse than being abducted 100 times.

"In 2007 I returned home and joined the Gwokke Keni People Living with AIDS community group. Gwokke Keni was founded in 2004 to address the stigmatisation of HIV/AIDS returnees in Pader. All 100 of us are living positively and helping the group’s coordinator, Jane Adong, to sensitise the people of Pader to the dangers of risky sexual behaviour. We support each other in caring for our sick, carrying family burdens and baby-sitting. We generate extra income from Gwokke’s jointly-owned pig farm. That said, I am weak and worry constantly about my children’s education; their parentless future. I can no longer afford their fees and I am hoping a Good Samaritan will come to their aid."

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