CARNOT, Central African Republic – When gunfire rang out through the
village just after dawn, when neighbors dropped their coffee to flee,
even when her mother grabbed three younger children and ran for her
life, the 10-year-old girl did not move.
It was not terror that pinned Hamamatou Harouna to the ground,
although she was terrified. It was that polio had left her unable to
walk.
So all she could do was wait and watch, paralyzed, as the vicious war
between Muslims and Christians in Central African Republic came to her
village. The Christian fighters were going from door to door, and she
wondered if she would die.
That’s when her 12-year-old brother came to her rescue. Barely bigger
than his sister, Souleymane struggled to hoist her, all 40 pounds of
her, onto his back. Around his neck she clasped her calloused hands,
dirty from pulling herself over the ground.
They set off, barefoot, disappearing into the dense tropical forest
as fast as they could manage. Her legs could not hook onto her brother’s
back, and her body drooped like a dead weight.
Hamamatou had never felt so heavy in her life.
Over the past year, conflict between Muslims and Christians has
killed thousands of people in the Central African Republic, a nation of
about 4.6 million that sits almost precisely at the heart of Africa. As
families flee, it is often children who carry the weight of the crisis
on their backs.
Nearly half a million children have been displaced by violence in the
country last year, with many hiding out in forests, according to
UNICEF. Hundreds have become separated from their families, lost or
simply too slow to keep up.
That’s what left Hamamatou and her brother trudging along the red
dirt path on an unlikely journey that would reflect a world turned
upside down by the complexities of war. The AP pieced together the story
from interviews with the girl over two weeks and information from witnesses, health workers, priests and medical records.
Hamamatou, a Muslim girl, grew up in Guen, a village so remote that
it can hardly be reached during the rainy season. Before the conflict,
it was home to about 2,500 Muslims, a quarter of the population, many of
whom worked as diamond miners. Today only three remain.
Life had not been kind to Hamamatou. She lost her father at age 7. A
year later, her limbs withered from polio, a disease that had almost
died worldwide but is now coming back in countries torn by war and poverty.
The pain started in her toes, and a traditional healer could do
little for her. Within a month, she could no longer walk. Soon she had
to crawl across the dirt.
Most days she helped her mother sell tiny plastic bags of salt and
okra, each one tied firmly with a knot. Hamamatou had never been to
school a day in her life, but she spoke two African languages and knew how to make change.
Her brother, Souleymane, doted on her like a parent, helping her get
around as best he could. With what little money he had, he bought her
stunning silver earrings, with chains that swayed from a ball in each ear.
On the day of the attack, Christian militia fighters burst out of the
forest with machetes and rifles to seek revenge on the civilians they
accused of supporting Muslim rebels. Hamamatou’s mother scooped up her baby, grabbed the hands of two other children and disappeared into the masses. Souleymane was left carrying his sister.
He headed deeper and deeper into the forest on paths used by local
cattle herders. His back hunched forward from his sister’s weight. The
cacophony of insects drowned out the sound of his labored breathing.
The crisp morning air gave way to an unforgiving afternoon sun.
Hamamatou didn’t know how far they had walked, only that they had not
yet reached the next town, 6 miles (10 kilometers) away. It was clear
they would never make it to safety this way.
Exhausted, Souleymane placed his sister down on the ground and told
her he was heading for help. If he didn’t come back, he said, she should
make as much noise as possible so someone would find her.
Hamamatou told her brother she would wait for him in the grass, in the shade of a large tree.
As evening fell, hunger set in. Hamamatou had nothing to eat or
drink. She talked aloud to her brother and mother as though they were
still beside her. But with each sound of the grass moving, she feared wild boars would come to eat her.
She cried until her eyelids were swollen. She said aloud: “I have been abandoned.”
___
Despite decades of near anarchy, Central African Republic had little
history of overt sectarian violence until 2013, when Muslim rebels from
the north invaded the capital and overthrew the president.
The rebels, known as the Seleka, looted and killed Christians but
largely spared Muslims. The hatred toward them mounted, fuelled by
longstanding resentment that a Muslim minority of about 15 percent still
made up most of the merchant class in a desperately poor country.
And so when the Seleka were pushed out in January, Christian fighters
within minutes descended upon Muslim shops and claimed Muslim homes.
The backlash turned into a blood bath, and hundreds of thousands fled
their homes. Among them was Hamamatou’s family.
As Hamamatou sat on the same patch of forest, her stomach rumbled.
She dragged herself toward the grass she had seen the cattle eat. That
night, when it rained, she sipped from the puddles.
She was growing weaker by the day. And Souleymane was wrong – no matter how much noise she made, no one could hear her.
