{UAH} EXACTLY 36 YRS AGO, OMBACHI CHURCH MASSACRE: SURVIVOR SPEAKS OF TERROR.

THE OMBACHI CHURCH MASSACRE: SURVIVOR SPEAKS OF TERROR.

Picture:Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) Commander Brig. Basilio
Olara Okello led the senseless killings of innocent civilians across
the West Nile region of Uganda.

Last Saturday 24th June, it was exactly 36 years since one of the most
concealed genocides in Uganda's history was under way in the entire
West Nile region of North Western Uganda. One particular incident
stood out on 24th June 1981, a day that will live in infamy, but only
because it was the one well documented horror that even violated the
sanctity of the Church where innocent civilians had sought refuge.
Indeed the Comboni priests whose Church and school were attacked by
Milton Obote's fascist UNLA army backed by Tanzanian forces, would
ensure that the carnage and blood spilt that day was not swept under
the rag by Obote and his regime.

That slaughter would come to be known as 'The Ombachi Massacre'.

After the 1979 Tanzania war against President Idi Amin, a somber atmosphere
hang over Uganda's West Nile region, a vast area bordering both DR Congo
and South Sudan.

Terrorized communities sought refuge at the St Joseph's college Ombaci, a
school under the ambit of the Comboni Catholic missionaries, for safety
from Milton Obote's indisciplined UNLA army.

It was however widely known that the region was being persecuted because
they shared the same ethnicity with President Amin.

Refugees fleeing the area reported entire villages and trading centers
being under attack and hundreds of thousand of people killed or seeking
safety across the borders.

Drunk UNLA fighters raided the Church school. Scores of
civilians were tortured and killed by random fire at both the Catholic
mission and the adjacent secondary school.

A statement by the US-based Justice & Reconciliation Project said:
"The massacre was by all accounts extremely chaotic, with groups of
soldiers entering from all sides of the school and mission, and roving from
room to room shooting and looting. This highlights the challenges survivors
continue to face. We therefore made a number of recommendations, chiefly a
call for compensation of survivors, as well as support for livelihoods,
education, and reconciliation."

In explaining the level of carnage that occurred in West Nile during
that time, one John Bosco Amandua says: "Under UPC and President
Apollo Milton Obote, the massacres by Acholi UNLA fighters that the
people of West Nile region suffered between 1979 and 1986 was even far
worse than anything that ever happened during the LRA insurgency. At
one point there was not even any living being in sight in the whole
area. Not even a cat or a dog. Everyone was either dead, or had fled
as a refugee, and those responsible have never been held to account."

Today, the Catholic mission grounds still have the three large mass graves
where the victims of the Ombachi Church massacre were buried.

In a 2015 interview with journalist Owen Erima, one survivor by the
names of Veronica Eyotaru, now 60 years old, narrated how she suffered
at the hands of the merciless UNLA fighters. This is her harrowing
story (edited for clarity)

"Following the 1979 war, people in Arua [Amin's home district] remained
fearful, unsettled, and constantly threatened by Milton Obote and his
Acholi army.
In the year 1981, two years after Amin had left, things became particularly
worse. Civilians from surrounding villages as well as the nearby Arua town
took refuge at St. Joseph's College Ombaci and the neighbouring Catholic
mission [approximately four kilometres from Arua town]. The Uganda Red
Cross camped there to help the internally displaced people, giving them
humanitarian aid.
On the morning of Wednesday, June 24, 1981, I left the college and wanted
to run into exile in Sudan with my sister, Ezuru Anna but there was heavy
bombing and the soldiers were using heavy guns; bullets were raining all
over Arua. We decided to return to hide at Ombaci where others were hiding.
Before we got there, we saw UNLA soldiers aboard military trucks reversing.
The moment we entered Ombaci College, they started shooting people from
room to room.
There was a Red Cross leader called David who was shot in the leg in that
confusion. I took cover in one of the dormitories but when I realized that
it was not safe, I entered the Italian quarters believing that the soldiers
would have respect for the white missionary fathers and not venture into
their living space.
How wrong I was. I proceeded to join other people who had taken refuge in a
garage in the Italian quarters. Soon the soldiers were all over us armed
with guns, long knives, logs. They began shooting, stabbing, cutting and
clobbering people left right and center.
They would enter rooms and kill every living person be it a child or an
adult and only the lucky ones survived . They would shout in Kiswahili
"sasa fungua RPG, fungua machine gun" [Swahili meaning "now open fire with
the RPG (rocket propelled grenade), open fire with the machine gun!"] and
they would fire endlessly on people.
Again they would shout "leta pesa!" [literally translated as "Bring
money"]. But as people rose up to give their money, they were shot
instantly. They kept shouting: "mama tie kani, baba tie kani, la mera tie
kani!" (Acholi language for "where is my mother, where is my father, where
is my sister!") and they would then slaughter people with knives.
Other people were hiding in a wardrobe. They were bombed.
A catholic father, Turukato was throwing soldiers money to distract and
persuade them not to kill people, but they continued.
I was shot in the leg; I did not know that I had another bullet lodged in
the back of my head. While in the same room with my sister, the mother of a
small boy called Leku from [nearby] Olivu village was shot dead instead of
my sister, but the bullet grazed my sister's breasts. By then she was 5
months pregnant. She dived on her belly but luckily the foetus wasn't
affected.
I saw a soldier striding towards us with a gun pointed at us. At that
point, I surrendered my life as I watched him approach, I whispered to
myself: ''I am dead!' He fired but the bullet hit the man next to me who
had a small kid. Another stray bullet grazed beneath my eye.
I tumbled down and five other people fell on me. I told a fat woman to
''get off me'', only to discover later that she was already dead.
There was blood all over on the floor and too many dead bodies. Red Cross
volunteers buried bodies in the same grave like cassava tubers. They
started transferring injured people to Angal Mission hospital in Nebbi
district because all the staff at Arua regional hospital had fled for their
lives.
The UNLA fighters had staged a roadblock at Manibe trading centre, about a
kilometre from Ombaci College, where they tortured people including
patients destined for treatment at Angal hospital. They ordered the trucks
carrying the injured to go back-and-forth between Ombaci and Manibe, and
some died in the process.
After several attempts, we managed to pass and drive up to Bondo [Military
barracks] and encountered another roadblock where soldiers climbed on the
lorry and tortured people. They removed the [intravenous] drips from
injured people; seven men died on the spot while a baby's hands were ripped
off. I don't know if he survived. They tortured us on the way thoroughly
because some soldiers said that the trucks were taking guerrilla fighters
for treatment.
We reached Angal hospital [about 120 kilometres away] at 11pm, having left
Arua at 11am. There were not enough rooms, nurses or doctors.
A Catholic nun and medical sister called Paula helped us a lot; she was the
matron. There was also an Italian doctor called Carlo Spadnoli, married to
a woman from Yumbe, who helped us immensely.
I remained admitted at Angal mission hospital for a whole year and was
almost the last person [out of those injured during the Ombachi Massacre']
to leave the hospital. The UNLA soldiers never came to Angal hospital.
Since my sister's injury was minor, she instead fled to Zaire [now the
Democratic Republic of Congo].
I returned home to Arua, but my leg was twisted because it had been placed
up on traction for a year. Although I survived death that time, the effects
have lived with me and 38 years later, I still have some fragments from
those bullets in my body. To date I cannot kneel properly; the leg still
pains especially in cold weather. I cannot engage in hard work at the
garden, and because of the injury to my head, I cannot carry luggage.
I live a miserable life; there is no compensation to us the victims,
nothing! No one is even talking about our plight, we have been left to
suffer and die on our own."

End

Download the entire Ombachi Massacre report here:
http://justiceandreconciliation.com/wp-content/
uploads/2014/06/Ombaci-FN-Web.pdf

Written by Hussein Lumumba Amin
26/06/2017

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