The mood at the Kololo Airstrip ‘Independence Grounds’ was electric – long before the arrival of Pope Francis.
Youths sang and danced their hearts out as they waited for the 78 year-old Pontiff who is on his second leg of a three-nation inaugural Africa trip.
But the mood was rather sombre as two youths – Emmanuel Odokonyero and Winnie Nansumba – took to the microphone to tell the Pope of their tribulations with conflict and the HIV/Aids scourge.
Odokonyero was among 41 students who were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in May 2003 from the Sacred Heart Minor Seminary, Lacor.
He however managed to live to tell the horror he underwent to Pope Francis on Saturday.
“Some of our friends were murdered… I was tortured and they tied my hands behind my back and I failed to breathe. I wanted to ask to be killed than to suffer such a pain. They then untied me and warned me not to escape. By God’s grace, I managed to escape on 11th August 2003 from Namokora Sub-county, Kitgum District,” he told an attentive Pope Francis.
