海角大神

The crowd ululated and cheered as Santa Aber and her daughter stepped out of the dust-streaked car. Nearly all the residents of this small village in northern Uganda had come out to welcome the women to their new home.

Two decades ago, at the age of 14, Ms. Aber was abducted from a nearby village by the Lord鈥檚 Resistance Army, a rebel group that waged a violent civil war in this part of Uganda from the late 1980s until the mid-2000s. She escaped in 2005, with a daughter she鈥檇 had with an LRA commander she was forced to marry.

But she couldn鈥檛 go home. Her family refused to take her back, as is true for many children abducted by the LRA. And so, for the next 15 years, she lived alone in a run-down hut, washing clothes for local families.

Then, last year, she heard about a group called the Women鈥檚 Advocacy Network (WAN), which helps reunite LRA abductees with their families. Her own family wouldn鈥檛 accept her back, she knew, but perhaps the family of her daughter鈥檚 father would. The group began quiet negotiations on her behalf, and two months later, she was here.

It was an unusual homecoming 鈥� to a place she had never before lived. But as she stepped into Atanga that day in February, Ms. Aber felt relief.

鈥淚 have a home now,鈥� she said, her eyes filling with tears.

WAN founder Evelyn Amony, who had brokered the reunion, watched the scene with a biting mix of joy and anguish. This was the 54th time her organization had reunited an LRA abductee with her family, bringing an end to years of wandering and suffering.

And each of those 54 times, she wondered when her own turn would come.

John Okot

Evelyn Amony (in red) poses with community members in Atanga, a village in Uganda where she recently brokered a reunion between a woman abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in the 1990s and her in-laws. The LRA abducted thousands of children during two decades of conflict.

From child to wife

In 1994, when Ms. Amony was a preteen, she was kidnapped by LRA rebels while walking home from school near Gulu, northern Uganda鈥檚 main city.

By that time, the LRA had been fighting a brutal guerrilla war in northern Uganda for seven years. Its goal was to overthrow the country鈥檚 national government, which had subjected the country鈥檚 north to decades of neglect and abuse, and establish a theocracy.

But the LRA struggled to find recruits. So it simply began to kidnap them.

Children were an easy target. According to the United Nations refugee agency, the LRA between 1987 and 2006. Boys became soldiers. Girls fought too, and many also became 鈥渨ives鈥� to the army鈥檚 commanders.

Ms. Amony was 14 and working as a house servant for the LRA鈥檚 leader, Joseph Kony, when he called her to his house alongside his two dozen wives.

From this day forward, he announced, Ms. Amony would be his wife, too.

鈥淚 asked him, 鈥楬ow can I be your wife when up until this point you have called me your child?鈥欌�� she recalls. 鈥淗e said, 鈥榊ou have no choice.鈥欌��

Eight years later, Ms. Amony and her three children were in an LRA camp in what is now South Sudan when the Ugandan military attacked. In the chaos, she grabbed for her children, but only found two sets of little hands.

鈥淚 watched my [other] child slip through my fingers,鈥� says Ms. Amony. 鈥淚 have searched for her ever since.鈥�

The Ugandan military took her into custody for eight months. When she was released, she went immediately back to her home village, only to find her family had disowned her.

鈥淭hey would often say, 鈥楰ony鈥檚 children are still alive but our children are all buried,鈥欌�� she says. (Ms. Amony had also adopted two of Mr. Kony鈥檚 other children, whom she met while in Ugandan custody.)

Healing together

So she left for Gulu, where she enrolled in a government-sponsored tailoring course at a local Roman Catholic school. Soon after, in 2006, she was chosen to represent former abductees at a series of peace talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government.

The experience was a revelation: She was not alone 鈥� or powerless.

Ms. Amony and a group of women she鈥檇 met at the peace talks and in Gulu decided to form a small organization to help each other save money. They called it Rwot Lakica (God is Merciful).

As membership grew, and the women grew close, they began to speak to each other about the traumas they had endured at the hands of the LRA. For many, there was a deep relief in breaking the shameful silence around their experiences of abduction, rape, and captivity.

Soon, the group began helping survivors tell their stories more publicly 鈥� at community gatherings, on radio talk shows, and in a book they published about women鈥檚 experiences under the LRA.

Renaming itself the Women鈥檚 Advocacy Network, the organization also formed small groups in villages across the region, where women can talk about the challenges of coming home, from stigma to poverty to the pain of searching for lost loved ones. They鈥檝e helped each other find economic security, too, with job training and livestock purchasing programs.

One family at a time

But their work, at times, has seemed endless.

The two-decade LRA insurgency had led to the deaths of 12,000 people in northern Uganda and . By 2009, the LRA had been driven out of Uganda, and its hostages have slowly trickled back to their homes. But they continue to face rejection, particularly children fathered by LRA rebels and their mothers.

Ms. Aber鈥檚 father, for example, said he could not welcome her back into their home because 鈥測ou had [a] child with the devil.鈥�

In cases like this one, Ms. Amony 鈥� who first met Ms. Aber when they were both being held by the LRA 鈥� and her team act as detectives. They ask the abductee to tell them anything she can remember about her child鈥檚 father: family name, clan name, village, lineage, and family stories. Then they use their own network of informants 鈥� WAN鈥檚 more than 900 members across northern Uganda 鈥� to find the family.

It didn鈥檛 take long to establish that Ms. Aber鈥檚 child鈥檚 father came from a village called Atanga. From there, Ms. Amony brokered a meeting with local leaders, and eventually with the man鈥檚 family.

Yes, the family said, their son had been abducted too, and yes, he had died while serving as an LRA commander. They agreed that Ms. Aber and her daughter were their family too, and promised to take them in.

On the evening of the reunion, as locals continued to ululate and dance to a convulsive local beat called lakubukubu, Ms. Amony watched from afar. She was happy for them, but another thought pressed down on her, heavy and aching.

鈥淢y plan is to continue helping as many returnees as I can,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut I hope my daughter will one day return back home.鈥�