'I saw blood where my leg was'
2004-11-26 14:55
It was just before Christmas when Margaret Arach Orech, a social worker from Uganda, decided on the spur of the moment to spend the holidays with her five children despite just having started a new job in the north of the country.
Twenty minutes into the long journey to Kampala, the minibus taxi drove over a landmine and Orech's life was changed forever.
"At first I thought a tyre had burst, but then I heard gunfire and realised it was an ambush," she says.
"I tried to get away, but I couldn't get up. When I looked down, I saw blood and pieces of flesh where my one leg used to be."
She hides in vain
Orech was terrified. Not only was she bleeding profusely, but she also knew what would happen to her if the notorious Lord's Resistance Army got hold of her. After all, her work involved rehabilitating children who had been abducted and forced into uniform by these rebels.
She hid in the tall grass, but a teenage rebel spotted her and started ripping the clothes from her body to rape her.
"I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be dead. He lost interest and left me there."
These days, the 47-year-old Orech travels the world in service of the Landmine Victim Network and is currently visiting Nairobi, Kenya, to prepare for an international summit against landmines that starts in the city next week.
Unchanging message
Her message, whether to the public or heads-of-state, never changes: "What happened to me and other victims should never have happened. We are innocent civilians.
"Countries must stop producing landmines, all existing mines must be destroyed and governments must keep their promises. There is no sense in signing an accord against landmines and then planting some a few days later."
Human rights organisations claim that Uganda is the only country in the world that supports the ban on landmines, but has nonetheless been planting them in secret for the past few years.
Cattle truck becomes ambulance
Although she was left for dead, government troops later found Orech and dropped her at a local clinic where no doctor or medicine was available.
A passing trader offered her and other survivors a lift "atop the bags of vegetables in the back of his truck" to another clinic. However, the truck soon broke down.
Eventually, another truck picked them up. Although they had to share the back of the truck with a load of cattle, they were taken to a well-equipped missionary hospital. It was 19:30, more than nine hours after the explosion had ripped Orech's leg off.
"The doctors were stunned that I was still conscious."
Amputated
Orech's leg was amputated below the knee and she had to spend the next two months in hospital.
One her discharge, more shocks awaited her.
"I had lost my work, my children had been kicked out of the house because I had not paid the rent, but worst of all was the rejection by my friends."
This was the first taste of the fate of disabled people, something Orech shares with all those who have been mutilated in landmine explosions.
Punishment from God
"People are superstitious about disability. They see it as punishment from God and therefore does not want to have anything to do with you."
Many relationships also break down after such explosions. "I know many female victims of explosions, but just a few whose men did not leave them."
Like someone else's leg
The tragedy left her devastated. She felt clumsy, received no compensation from government, had to pay her own medical bills and had to learn to get along again.
She says her faith is what carried her through.
Seven months after the incident, an Italian charity helped Orech to obtain an artificial leg, but initially, she felt as if she "was being smothered by it.
"It felt like someone else's leg, but I got used to it eventually."
She feels strongly about the fate of victims. She wants more resources allocated to the recovery and rehabilitation of landmine victims.
"I had education on my side and could work again, but most victims come from rural areas, are often women and are mostly poor. That is why it is easy to forget about them. We dare not."