Abductions by Joseph Kony’s rebel army have contributed to thousands of missing children throughout East and central Africa. This is a story of one still missing.
Ocora Geoffrey was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in June of 1993. He was 15 years old, studying at a secondary school in Atanga. His older brother, Ocaya David, gave an account of what took place on that fateful day.
“He had just got home from school for the holidays and was caught off guard. The LRA were in our compound and the rest of us had escaped. I was hiding nearby and saw the LRA rough him up. They told him to put his books down because he was about to get a new pen, which was a gun.”
David said that he felt helpless to protect his younger brother. Since the abduction 20 years ago, they have not heard a word about his whereabouts but are still hopeful that he will return one day.
“In the past when so many people were defecting from the LRA, we always visited the rehabilitation centers whenever we heard news of defectors. He was never among them, but we kept going back time and again,” David said.
“My brother had dreams of becoming a journalist. He loved literature and English lessons, but was also good in science subjects,” David remembered. “My parents had lots of hope in him because he was so brilliant and took his studies seriously. But now all that is gone and it hurts because we can’t do anything about it.”
David remembers going to the rehabilitation center whenever LRA defectors came home, but it has now been 20 years without word of his brother.
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