Thursday, 14 January 2010- The Victim Breaks Down in Tears

The second participating victim takes the witness box. He is a former child soldier who upon request of his Legal Representative will give evidence on his forcible recruitment by the UPC and his active participation in hostilities.

Although in the course of this trial the Chamber has heard testimony from a number of alleged former child soldiers, the judges considered the account of each former child soldier to be unique. This particular victim proposes to give evidence on the recruitment, enlistment and use of child soldiers under the age of 15 in an area which has not been addressed thus far during the Prosecution case.

"We are in open session," announces the court officer. Mr. Keta warns the witness not to reveal the name of the military camp he was transferred to after being abducted. The use of that name may lead to his identification. He's testifying with both his voice and image distorted.

This former child soldier cannot recall clearly when he was forcibly recruited. In different occasions he has mixed up years and months, February 2002, March 2003. He just remembers this occurred at the end of the examinations period, and the way the events unfolded. Two armed soldiers took him without witnesses. "Everybody had fled," says the youngster. "I was taken alone. I couldn´t put resistance to it because I would be killed". The soldiers belonged to the UPC.

Soon afterwards the witness was taken to a training military camp located nearby. "Could you describe that camp you were taken to?" asks Mr. Keta. According to the witness, this place was situated on a hill. "It was surrounded by holes which had been dug, with small houses in which the soldiers lived during the war," he explains. "In the centre of the camp, there was a prison, a house made with straw. I was there myself."

The child spent twenty-four hours in that camp before being transferred to a second one. "It was far away, we travelled for two days before reaching the second camp," says the witness. There, he found other soldiers and recruits wearing clothes which were familiar to him. "Those uniforms were similar to the UPC [ones]," he says. "And did you see people with the same age as you [in that camp]?" asks Mr. Keta. "Yes, indeed."

The witness tells the Court about the punishments and mistreatment the recruits were subject to. Little food was dispensed, and the meals they were given often caused them health problems. "Rather than salt, sand was put on the food. I had diarrhoea which I treated myself." Punishments for committing mistakes in battle were common. "If you retreated instead of moving forward and people think you want to flee, the person standing by you had the right to shoot at you," explains the witness. Penalties were often handed out in public. "A person was put against the tree, and the soldiers, standing in front of you, shot until your body was disintegrated into pieces."

Girls were also found in that camp. "They were soldiers and the wives of the commanders at the same time," explains the witness. "Don´t know how old they were, but they were children, 13, 14 years of age."

This former child soldier participated in the battle of Bogoro, in which, according to the Prosecution, near 200 civilians died as a result of the clashes between the UPC, of Hema ethnicity and the Lendu and Ngiti militias. Germain Katanga, of Ngiti origin and alleged commander of the Force de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI), and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, of Lendu ethnicity and alleged former leader of the Front des Nationalistes et Intégrationnistes, (FNI), are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for jointly planning and carrying out the assault on Bogoro village on 24 February 2003 as a part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Hema population in Ituri.

The former child soldier defines that battle as terrible. "People were killed. I saw people dying next to me, friends, commanders. They were dropping as flies," says the witness. The youngster was injured in that battle, a bullet went through his body.

"If you ask about my memories, when I think about these events, I really find difficult that time, particularly with regards my parents. I had been alone..."

Silence.

The witness takes off his headphones and breaks into tears. The microphone remains switched on and in the public gallery all we can hear is his inconsolable crying.

"Closed session please," says the Presiding Judge.