"The army asked for donations. I was the smallest one in the...

"The army asked for donations. I was the smallest one in the family, so I was given. I was seven or eight. I heard my parents arguing. My mother didn’t want me to go, because I was her only child. But a few nights later, my father brought me a new white robe, and told me I was going to go to school. When I first arrived at the military camp, I was scared to see the guns. In the morning we would go to school, in the evening we would train with the guns. But there were many children there who I grew up with and played with, I eventually felt more comfortable. After a few weeks, they marched us to Ethiopia for training. We never made it there. We ran out of food and water on the way.”
"Are you angry with your father?"
"I speak with him regularly now. I’ve forgiven him. And in the end, I would have never been educated if he hadn’t sent me away. But I was very angry with him when we were dying. While we marched, the children who gave up would sit down in the shade. We would tell them not to sit but they’d say, ‘I’ll catch up later.’ And they never would. I saw many of them get eaten by wild animals."

(Tongping Internally Displaced Persons Site, Juba, South Sudan)