Where bandits roam free, children bear worst scars

Paul Louyong’orot (15) is a Standard Two pupil at Lokichar Girls Primary School in Lodwar, his refuge since he lost a leg to bandits three years ago. PHOTO| WILLIAM INGANGA | KNA

‘Report Forced Marriage’, the sign nailed on a tree at Lokichar Girls Primary School reads. In its silent, unobtrusive countenance, it points to an ill that stalks the girls of Turkana County.

There is no sign, however, to warn or deter the county’s biggest vice, and by far the biggest contributor to everything that is wrong about this place, including the forced marriages that the small notice on the tree seeks to fight. And that vice is conflict. Human conflict.

Paul Louyong’orot (15) should not be a pupil at Lokichar Girls Primary School. He is a boy, and this is a girls’ school. An amputee, he limps around the compound in his artificial right leg, counting himself lucky to have the chance to be here, the discomfort and dart-eyed disapproval of his peers notwithstanding.

Louyong’orot is living proof that when conflict is allowed to fester, the children end up bearing the brunt of the consequences. He is lucky to have found a shelter and a school, but in many other conflict-prone regions, thousands of children never get a second chance at life. The health and economic consequences are hard to imagine.

Complications from a gunshot wound inflicted on him by livestock rustlers led to the loss of his precious limb three years ago. He was tending his family’s flock of about 50 goats when the attackers confronted him.

Sensing danger, Louyong’orot, just a harmless child who posed no threat to the rustlers, scampered for safety, but a trigger-happy bandit shot at him.

“The bullet ripped through my leg and sent me flying in the air,” he remembers. “I collapsed to the ground and waited for the angel of death to summon me.”

From the corner of his eye, he watched as the rustlers rounded all his goats and vanished into the bush, then he summoned all the energy he could and crawled to a nearby shade, where he primed himself against the trunk and waited for whatever fate would bring him.

RESCUE TEAM

That fate could have a wild animal scavenging for easy pickings, or death from haemorrhage, but luckily for him it came in the form of a rescue team from the village. It was too late though, and so when doctors at Lodwar Hospital finally lay their gloved hands on him, they advised that they had to amputate his leg because he had lost a lot of blood and infection was setting in.

Turkana County has a lot going for it. It, for instance, has one of the most successful health care networks in the country since devolution, but insecurity remains a huge challenge here.

The County Children’s Coordinator, Charles Kiprono, says what bothers him most is that the bandits do not even spare children: “They think everyone is an enemy,” he says.

The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey for 2014 indicates that over 40 per cent of men countrywide aged between 15 and 19 have been victims of physical violence. In the Rift Valley, where Louyong’orot lives, the percentage is 39.7.

When he was attacked he was younger, and therefore his age bracket is not captured in these disturbing statistics. The scourge, therefore, is worse than what is captured in government reports, for Louyong’orot is just one among many other children nursing the effects of violent conflict here.

GRANTED REFUGE

Because Louyong’orot had lost his father earlier, and now the only source of livelihood he knew had been herded away, he was granted refuge at the John Paul II Home for Children with Disabilities in Lokichar as his mother could neither guarantee his safety or wellbeing. The home, 90 kilometres away from Loyong’orot’s village, is the only such institution here that caters for children with disabilities. Over 70 children — 39 boys and 34 girls — are housed here.

Josephine Nambuba, the administrator, says some of the children were shot by bandits while others were pricked by poisonous thorns and treatment was delayed. “Some are lame due to polio attacks,” she adds.

When children with various degrees of disability arrive at the centre, they are assessed in liaison with doctors from Kijabe Mission Hospital. “The doctors select those requiring surgery at Kijabe and physiotherapy here,” explains Nambuba.

The centre shares a fence with the school in which Louyong’orot is enrolled. At 15, he is far much older than his Standard Two classmates, but for now he has no other option. Sometimes he struggles to cope, and when he takes too long flipping his textbook to locate pages, his deskmates come to his aid.

The impact of conflict on children may force them to live on the streets or to become orphans. Ruth Njuguna, a children’s officer at the National Council of Children’s Services, says “the four rights pillars are affected” when conflict is extended to children.

“These are the right to survival, the right to child development, the right to child protection, and the right to child participation,” she explains.

Louyong’orot is living proof that when conflict is allowed to fester, the children end up bearing the brunt of the consequences. He is lucky to have found a shelter and a school, but in many other conflict-prone regions, thousands of children never get a second chance at life. The health and economic consequences are hard to imagine.