'Invisible Children' share horror stories of forced child soldiership
Boni Ankena’s story started with childhood dreams, but quickly turned dark. In 2000, Ankena – who is from Gulu, Uganda – was kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – an anti-Ugandan government group which builds its forces with child soldiers.
He was 10 years old.
After two weeks, Ankena – who spoke to a group in the student center on Wednesday – watched these soldiers murder one of his closest friends. He knew the LRA was taking the group into Sudan, so he decided to escape.
"If you reach [Sudan], you should forget about going home," he said.
One night, he untied himself from the other children and fled.
"I fell down and started crawling," he said.
One of the soldiers heard Ankena’s escape and chased after him, shooting. Ankena was shot in the leg, but he continued on.
Eventually, he received medical treatment and returned to his family.
Three years later he met three Americans who were making a documentary called "Invisible Children: Rough Cut." The filmmakers followed and interviewed Ugandan children who commuted from the villages to Gulu, a city, every night. The children, including Ankena, were hiding from the LRA.
Today, Invisible Children Inc. is helping rebuild areas of northern Uganda that were devastated by war. Ankena, now 19, is a member of one of 10 groups traveling the United States on the Legacy Tour to inform people of the strong need for education funding.
Originally, Franklin College did not make the list of stops.
Service Learning Coordinator Doug Grant arranged for the hasty detour. He and his wife met the group last month at a church in Mooresville.
"We just thought, ‘This is really something we should try to bring to the college,’" Grant said.
To accommodate the schedule change, the group split. Ankena, Ivory Mobley and Tessa Deleo came to Franklin, while three others went on with the original schedule.
Before the presentation at the college, the group visited Franklin Community Middle School and ate dinner with Franklin College students who traveled to Uganda on last year’s winter term trip.
Senior Melissa Kinne was part of that trip. She said Americans take for granted many things Ugandan children love, like education.
"Don’t worry about time, don’t worry about money, don’t worry about other prior commitments, go," she said. "Go to Uganda and just see what’s going on there."
Grant said Americans don’t understand or know about the conflict.
"Sometimes we tend to ignore that part of the world," Grant said. "They don’t have oil; they don’t have precious metals; they don’t have gemstones ... they can barely grow enough to feed themselves, so I think we don’t pay much attention and this war’s been going on for 24 years."
