Meet the LRA rebel who spent half a lifetime plundering, kidnapping children in Africa … then quit
For 15 years Patrick Kidega was in the armed group, marauding the lawless border lands between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Sudan
By his own admission, former militia man Patrick Kidega spent half of his life as a plunderer – guarding his leader, stealing from locals and kidnapping children as his group rampaged across central Africa.
But he himself was a stolen child, abducted at the age of 15 and forced to join one of Africa’s most notorious armed groups: the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
“One evening, in Uganda, I was coming back home after school and as I arrived men from the LRA came out of the bush and took everyone from the village, my parents were tied up,” Kidega said. “They took everyone into the bush but they only kept the children.”
He went on to spend 15 years in the armed group, marauding the lawless border lands between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and Sudan.
The fanatical Christian movement, whose mission is to rule by the Bible’s Ten Commandments, is held responsible for more than 100,000 deaths, and the abduction of between 60,000 and 100,000 children, according to a UN toll in 2013.