Subject: Refugee: 'Are my kids still alive?'
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 20:34:17 +0100
South London headlines
Refugee: 'Are my kids still alive?'
By Zara Bishop
PHOEBE Kabala lives for her three children. But she has not seen them for six years and does not know whether she will ever see them again.
She has no photographs of Isac, Tim and Natasha - and her memories of them are beginning to fade.
Phoebe is a refugee from Uganda, who was forced to flee to Britain to save her life. Her parents and her husband are dead and her home has been destroyed in the battle between the Ugandan government and rebels.
She is living in a room in Catford, while the Home Office decides what to make of her story of survival.
Phoebe, 41, met her husband Kigozi at school. They ran a shop selling fresh produce, sugar and milk in Bombo - the town where they grew up, which is about 12 miles from the capital, Kampala.
One day in 1997, soldiers took her husband away and killed him because he had been rebelling against the government. He was 40.
The fear Phoebe says she felt when a group of soldiers came and took her from her home to a prison cell 50 miles away shortly afterwards is almost unimaginable.
Her eyes full of tears, she said: "I never saw my children again."
In the tiny cell, they bound her with rope around her stomach and threatened to kill her. Later, four soldiers raped her. Phoebe would almost certainly have been shot had a young guard not taken pity on her and helped her to escape.
He let her out of the prison when the other soldiers were not around and pointed the way to a nearby main road.
Filled with the terror of an animal being hunted by a predator, Phoebe scrambled through the bushes.
She said: "My stomach was really hurting and I was bleeding a lot after being raped. The trees were cutting me and I thought the soldiers were following me."
Phoebe flagged down a car and the driver agreed to drive her to the capital, Kampala. Once in the city, he demanded money although Phoebe did not have a penny with her.
She asked him to drive her to the home of one of her husband's friends and begged him to pay, which he did.
Phoebe said: "My husband's friend took me to his wife and they called a doctor because I was cut very badly.
"I told them what had happened.
"They said I couldn't stay with them because they might be killed too.
"He took pictures of me to make a passport and visa under a false name and put me on a plane to Heathrow.
"I was not frightened of flying although I had never been on a plane before. I was frightened of being recognised as I got on to the plane."
Six years later, Phoebe is living in the room in Catford while she waits for the Home Office to process her asylum application.
Banned from working while her application is processed, she spends her days reading and working out how far she can stretch the £30 she gets to live on each week.
The Lewisham Refugee Network in Deptford has given Phoebe clothes and support. She relies on counselling and anti-depressants, which make her feel dizzy, to get through each day.
She said: "I could only go back to Uganda if there was a change of government there. I know my home has been destroyed. There will be no one there now. They will all have run away."
She added: "Every day in Catford, I see people out with their kids and think of my children. "I just want to know whether they are alive."
*The Lewisham Refugee Network in Evelyn Street, Deptford, is appealing for donations of clothes, toiletries and non-perishable food. If you can help, telephone 020-8694 0323.
