Author
Alice Achan
Alice Achan lived a happy, peaceful life in a village in northern Uganda until 1986 when a neighbouring tribe came to steal her family’s cattle – at gunpoint. Aged just 13, Alice was forced to run for her life into the bush with two child relatives, returning home three days later to find her brave father powerless, afraid and defeated.
Soon after that awakening to fear, Alice found herself in the middle of a battleground when the Lord’s Resistance Army began to terrorise her village as they fought government forces. The brutal rebel force captured local boys to join the fighting and abducted girls as sex slaves for their commanders. Terrified, Alice and a group of other girls had to hide in the bush each night – for two years – as gunshots flew overhead between the rival groups.