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How captivity ended for one abductee

By Carolyn Davis
CAROLYN davis is a member of the inquirer editorial board

Posted on Sun, May. 08, 2005

Kitgum, northern Uganda - This is how 15-year-old Christine Alum's captivity ends: dazed and dirty and sitting in the back of an old pickup truck next to a muddy spare tire.

Christine got away from the Lord's Resistance Army when she ran during a gun battle with government soldiers.

The soldiers have brought her to this center for former abductees run by the Concerned Parents Association, a Ugandan advocacy group.

Blisters and open sores cover her ankles, toes and feet. Her eyes are red and sunken, and small circles dot her neck - marks, she explains in a flat voice, where the rebels poked her with sticks when she did not walk fast enough.

She was held in captivity for two months.

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