Casualties of War

This is just killing me right now – I am approving a list of patients for medical treatment – they are all former child soldiers, or else children who were “born in captivity” – this means that their mothers were abducted and gave birth whilst child soldiers themselves. Reading this list of injuries, looking at the ages of the patients and wondering about their lives in order to have survived, but be living with these injuries. The suffering of the people of northern Uganda, and their continued perseverance with life and hope, in the face of a situation that would just cause me to crawl into a corner and give up hope, totally amazes me. I will give a couple of examples:

· An 18 year old boy paralysed in one arm due to gun shot
· A 20 year old boy paralysed from the waist down due to gun shot
· A 16 year old boy with his jaw blown off – artificial jaw
· Two 9 year old girls, born in captivity, one with HIV/AIDS and the other paralysed due to a bomb splinter in the brain
· A girl totally paralysed and wheelchair-bound due to bullet in the spine, has returned with two children born in captivity
· A 15 year old boy, totally blind because of backfire of a gun
· A 17 year old boy with a bullet lodged between his two lungs – inoperable

This is just an extract of this list, which is just a tiny, miniscule fraction of the number of war-wounded in northern Uganda – and these are just the physical wounds. Forget the fact that the entire region is traumatised and psychologically wounded. The mental trauma these kids have gone through is indescribable.

Think of some kids you know – imagine them living like this? For the rest of their lives. It is such evil. And now the LRA (the rebel army fighting the insurgency in northern Uganda) has turned its attention to Sudan and DRC – they are wreaking untold destruction in Congo right now – hundreds of killed and heavens knows how many children abducted.

At least some small piece of hope – we are bringing some of these kids down to Kampala to the main hospital here where, we hope, they will have some of their problems fixed. Such a tiny little drop in the ocean though…

So that’s my morning…how’s yours???