Toy – Tank
His name used to be Abu but this name has now lost all of its worth and meaning. He was only seven years old and he lived with his sister and his parents in Uganda. Abu’s favourite toy were his wooden soldiers. He truly loved them and wanted to continuously make his army grow. For this reason, his parents used to give him a few shillings every now and then which he saved in a small coin bank shaped as a toy-tank. His goal was to have enough shillings so that one day he could buy a real replica war airplane. However, one day everything changed.
It was a morning like any other and Abu was helping his sister to carry water from the nearest well. Suddenly they heard a scream. They ran back to their home to see what had happened, only to find army vans surrounding the whole village. All of them had flags belonging to the Lord’s Resistance Army. When they arrived at their house, they saw two soldiers holding their guns on their parents’ heads. The parents yelled to their children to run and save themselves but before they could even say goodbye, the soldiers heartlessly pulled the triggers. Abu fell down. He couldn’t even grasp what had just happened. The harmless games and countless battles he had recreated with his little soldiers were taking place right before his eyes. Blood, fire, screams, a scene of horror. The soldiers took his sister away and placed her in a truck along with the rest of the young women of the village. Their fate and destination unknown. Abu was frozen the only thing moving was a river of tears running from his eyes. The warlord exited Abu’s house holding his little tank in his hands. He got closer and told him with a smile «I see you understand the power of guns… you will become an excellent child soldier». He gave him the tank on one hand and a gun on the other. Last, they got all the young boys of the village, the ones that were around Abu’s age and they disappeared into thin air as quickly and suddenly as they had previously appeared.
The vileness and death Abu faced the time that followed turned his «harmless» coin bank into a symbol of enforcement of strength and power. He would never be the same. His name had lost its value… he was no longer Abu, he was just another child-soldier.
Christina Siozou,
2nd Senior High School of Kaisariani
