By Ngor Khot Garang
This land i asked myself and broke down crying. I tried to be strong but I was weak to do that. What I saw that day was fiery rain. You can’t believe it, it was a total mass murder of the poor. I witnessed the poor of this rich land being silently killed by the rich. The weeping was one of the things that broke my heart into a million pieces.
Help me, I have no hope. Brother saved my life. They have slaughtered my parents and they are looking for me. Run away with me please. Do it quickly because I don’t want to follow my parents. I have other siblings to take care of.
A 16-year-old girl came to me with tears in her eyes and embraced me. Their home was attacked and her parents were not so lucky. They were brutally murdered as she watched behind the water drum where she had hid herself.
As a young girl, she had never seen a dead person since she was born but now her parents were lying in front of her, dead.
It was not the gruesome killing of these important people that terrified her but the nature in which her mother was raped and killed. This woman (mother to this girl) was 7 months pregnant when two lives were squeezed out of her. What was done to her is an act that will remain as a curse for generations in this land.
The child in her womb which was due in three months’ time was removed and slaughtered. I had thought of committing suicide when I heard this but knowing that I was her only source of hope made me changed my mind. We were about to say our prayer. The prayer was to ask God where to get our next meal, then they came in and that is the beginning of everything.
To this family, getting food was something they would ask God for. They were so poor that the only thing they could afford was one meal a day when they were lucky.
They hit my dad with a gun. When dad was now roiling in pain, they asked mum who was begging for dad’s life to follow them somewhere or she would lose her life. They led her to a certain corner and raped her until she was almost dead. The child in her womb who was going to be the first male child in our family was removed and killed.
The young girl narrated her painful experience to me. I had no choice but to just cry. I was very helpless at that time. I had to run for my life but who will take care of this young girl if I run as fast as my leg could carry me?
No I have to risk my life if only to save this girls life but what do I have? I don’t even have any weapons. I have only got a pen. Even if I get a gun, I will not kill someone even if that person was an enemy. But who is an enemy? In this world, we don’t have enemies. We create a false sense of insecurity and brand others as enemies. I will never kill anybody because we are one big human family but do these people know that?
I think not, I have to save this girls life. God see us through I want to carry this girl for she was so tired and hungry that the only thing she could do was to sit down. Skin and bones that is what I was. This girl is in a very big problem. It is better we are killed together than to leave her to be raped and on top of that killed. But she does not want to die. She has her siblings to look after. She was now their mother, I had to do something for this girl. Stream of tears were rolling down my cheeks.
I didnt know how to save two young lives, mine and hers. I was at a crossroad and at the verge of giving up. I was now tired of pretending to be strong. As if by miracle, we saw people, mostly women and children, running towards our direction. Some were falling down never to rise up and I came to realize later that they were being shot behind. How could people be so heartless to the extent where they kill women and children? I wept more bitterly.
Aye, little children, run as fast as you can, death is coming. This voice seemed to be too authoritative. It was from a middle aged woman who was leading the running team. She was asking us not to wait but to run. The irony was that we weren’t told where we were running to. We had to run because the house was running too.
Home was chasing some of its inhabitants and was keeping some mostly the rich and politicians. Before this war broke out, some men were seen buying weapons of mass destruction with the money that was supposedly meant to develop this land and pay the civil servants. These weapons were bought in the name of national security but the irony of this event was that the guns were bought to wipe from the face of the earth the poor so that the rich would live to loot the lands resources.
My dear, I am happy that you are still alive. Where are your parents? I thought they had killed you. A woman that I later learned to be the girl’s aunty was overjoyed when she found out that her late sister’s daughter was still alive.
And who is this emaciated young man? She asked. This is the young man who saved my innocent life. I owe him a lot. The young girl replied. The woman who happened to be the girl’s aunty reached her hand out to greet me. She even wanted to bow down to appreciate me but I told her not to bother. We are humans, and helping others is our duty.
But you know this woman, her story is different. She is also a victim of this cruel world and she had planned suicides on several occasions. When she was only 16, she was married off to a man who was thrice her age because of cattle that were later on taken by raiders. She was forced to live a very miserable life without education and hope for a better future.
Now death was calling her from a distance. As a widow, she was not prepared to go that way and leave her children behind. She had to run but poverty was also waiting at the other end to devour. I really pitied this woman. Even as a poor young man, I felt better off than that woman. She was born to live a decent life but some did not want them to lead that life. They instead want them dead.
It was a terrible moment but I was at ease at least. This young girl was with her aunty now. So I had my own life to protect. I parted with them and disappeared. On my way to an unknown location, I saw scavengers feasting upon corpses. Why did I use this route, God? I cried. This was the first time in my young life to see humans in heaps, lifeless. It was like a dream but it was true and the pool of blood could tell.
I nearly mistook hyena for a human; for it was drenched in blood that you will think it was a live human who had camouflaged himself for his safety. When I realized that it was an animal, I knew that I was done for. It will kill me but I was wrong. The hyena was so satisfied and there were many human beings to feed on the ground, not a thin young man who was just bones and skin.
The hyena laughed at me in such a way that I realized that he must have known I was just a poor young man who was going to die anytime of hunger. I got down to pray. This time, I was going to ask God for a world that will never exist. A world where love rules. A world where people; women, men, rich and poor are equal. God what have we done? We want your helping hand. We are dying and this land is going to be empty soon. Who will worship you when we are all gone?”
When I was about to conclude my prayer, I heard gunshots and somebody came running. My son, this is not the time to pray. God has forgotten about us. Run, perhaps your legs will save you not God. Run, soldiers are coming with very big guns. They want to kill people. I wondered why soldiers would want to kill their own people but I realize that they have been doing this for a very long time.
There are people who use their salaries to buy guns and they use these guns to kill people. THIS WORLD HAS A LOT OF SURPRISES. Hey young man, what are you doing over there? When I turned around to see who these people were, I was shocked to learn that I was being held at gunpoint. They wanted to me and when I saw the guy pulling the trigger, I woke up from sleep and realized it was just a dream. Glory be to God.