Life as a soldier

“I just couldn’t handle being everyone's slave, despite the drugs they forced us to take.” Some of the girls in the camp were soldiers, and Faida had noticed that they were never raped. She asked the commandant if she could be a soldier.
   “He agreed, and after two months of weapons training, I was a member of his army.”
   Early one morning it was time for Faida to carry out her first attack.
   “We were given drugs before we left the base. We children were forced to walk at the front. My friend Aciza was suddenly hit in the back. She died.”
   Faida was constantly thinking about escaping. But she couldn't.
   “A little boy tried to escape once. He was shot immediately.”
   “The first time Murhabazi came, I saw an unarmed man with his arms in the air, saying: “Amani leo!”, “Peace now!”. He could easily have been killed, but he wasn't afraid,” Faida recalls.
   Murhabazi said that he was there to take the children home and that children shouldn’t be soldiers, they should be going to school.
   The commandant refused to release the children, so Murhabazi had to leave empty-handed. A few years later he came back, but it ended in the same way.

Third time lucky

When Faida had been held for four years, Murhabazi came again.
   “I couldn’t believe it when Murhabazi hugged me and said: “This is your chance! Everything’s going to be all right.”
   Faida got the chance to start school again at Murhabazi’s home for abused girls.