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... Children flee their own homes to escape predators in the night

By Carolyn Davis
inquirer EDITORIAL board

Kitgum, northern Uganda - It is 6 p.m. At this time of day, many children around the world are eating dinner, playing or being told stories.

Here in Uganda, an estimated 35,000 youngsters are trying to elude rebels who want to abduct them for soldiering and sexual slavery.

These children are the night commuters of northern Uganda.

The Lord's Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, has kidnapped at least 28,000 children during a 19-year war between rebels and the government forces of President Yoweri Museveni.

Johnson Tokadi's family wants to make sure that doesn't happen to him. Johnson is 12, a serious boy with a slow smile and a love of math. He and his family have lived in the nearby Labuje displaced person's camp since August 2003. Eleven relatives share his hut.

"The hut is small, and if the rebels come, it will be difficult for all of us to escape," his mother says.

So every night she and her husband send Johnson to the courtyard of St. Joseph's Hospital about two miles away.

This is what happens:

6 p.m. The commute

Johnson bathes, and the family eats - corn mush and beans. Heavy rain has turned the ground to mud. Even though lightning still flashes, Johnson must leave. Carrying a blanket in a woven sack, he joins 100 or so other children on the sloppy dirt road. The downpour has slowed to a persistent drizzle. Most of them walk barefoot. Reckless bicycle riders and large ruts in the road pose a nightly hazard. It is dark; garbage is everywhere. Even the most agile children cannot avoid cutting their feet on nails or glass on the ground.

A few roadside stands sell cookies and sweets to this odd customer niche. Some children stop. Others just readjust the weight of their sacks and move on.

After Johnson has walked for 40 minutes, he sees dots of light marking the fenced-in hospital grounds. After the cool and wet walk, those lights beckon like angels.

7:45 p.m. Getting settled

Johnson has a dilemma.

He usually sleeps on a sidewalk, under an overhang. But tonight children who normally sleep on the uncovered ground have moved to a drier place - Johnson's place. He does not want to ask them to move, out of fear that they will yell or hit him.

Finally, with the drizzle gaining force and cold air moving in, he heads toward the hospital chapel, a round open-air building, where night commuters are allowed to sleep only when it rains.

About 50 children, mostly boys, are in the chapel. The sound of rain competes with the cries of children being treated for malaria in the building next door.

After a few minutes, a young preacher steps behind the pulpit and asks whether the children would prefer a short prayer before bed or to hear him preach.

"Preach," they yell.

He tells the story of the two men nailed on crosses at Calvary with Jesus. The moral: Learn to accept your troubles. Believe in Jesus, he says, to gain life everlasting.

Johnson sits in the middle of the chapel, still wearing his day clothes: blue shirt and dark, dusty pants. He listens intently to the preacher.

Some children lay out their bedding. The luckiest ones have a straw mat and wool blanket. Most have only a thin blanket or cotton cloth.

One child complains that a grown man is sleeping off his drunkenness under a pew. A watchman comes in but fails to rouse the man. He tells the children to call for help if the drunk causes trouble.

At 8:30, Johnson and some others kneel and clasp hands. They recite the Lord's Prayer, sweet and high. As the air becomes chilled, some of the most vulnerable children in the world cocoon themselves in whatever cover they have and close their eyes.

11 p.m. Noises of the night

Children cough all around the hospital compound.

A baby wails in the nearby children's ward, where adults talk somberly.

A fluorescent light hums in the chapel.

A motorcycle leaves the hospital grounds.

Children snore. A cricket sings. An adult cries out in pain.

There are a few seconds of silence, then a child lets out a raspy, haunting cough and a baby starts wailing again.

Midnight. They sleep

In their sleep the children shift, wriggle and squirm in the cold. They lie in all directions, head-to-head and feet-to-head. As the night goes on, they huddle together to keep warm. A stranger puts a blanket on one child with no bedding at all, and his sleep becomes more peaceful.

The rain continues to fall, and nothing protects them from the wind.

The smell of disease wafts from the hospital wards and mixes with body odors and the stench of urine. Children rise to relieve themselves in the grass outside the chapel, then return to their patch of floor.

Some talk in their sleep.

3 a.m. More sniffles; an arrival

A girl enters silently, stepping over the others to find a spot. She stops before the altar, then wraps herself, with polished grace, in a dirty cloth, swirling it around until she is fully swaddled from waist to head. She lies down and does not move the rest of the night.

More cries and coughs come from the sleepers. One wakes up and sniffles.

He sees another person awake and smiles. Then he pulls his blanket over his head. Johnson is sleeping deeply, close to other children for warmth.

Suddenly, several pops ring out. In Abington or West Chester, Cherry Hill or Havertown, such noise would be rain pounding on a metal trash can or a car backfiring. But in northern Uganda, noises that sound like gunshots probably are gunshots.

The uneasy night emphasizes just how vulnerable the children trapped in this war are.

5:30 a.m. Awakening

Ten children are up and chatting. A child across the room shouts for them to be quiet. One boy has brought a radio with him and turns on church music. The drunk is gone.

By 6, most of the children are awake. As the sky becomes light, the night commuters roll up their bedding and prepare for the trek home.

Johnson is awake and has neatly folded his blanket. He has slept well, he says.

The church bell sounds, and the children leave the compound. Some laugh and poke their friends; some sing a church song. The sacks they carry can't hold all the burdens that weigh them down.

7:15 a.m. Home again

More than 12 hours after he left his hut, Johnson is back home. He sets down his sack and goes to wash.

His father leaves to help slaughter a pig. His mother feeds the baby.

Johnson likes his school near the camp better than his old village school. More subjects are taught, and he is not so afraid of rebel attacks. In the village, that was not the case.

His nightly trip to the hospital is tiresome, but he sleeps best there because he feels safer. Sometimes a teacher comes to instruct the children, which he likes.

He has gotten hurt only once while night commuting. "I was beaten at the hospital by another night commuter because I stepped on his leg," he says.

When he grows up, Johnson wants to be a doctor. He also wants a wife and children, but he doesn't want his kids to go through what he endures. They will eat breakfast, go to school, do chores. After supper, they will stay up for awhile with the grown-ups.

Most of all, he hopes, "the children will sleep at home."

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