Julie’s Story, Central African Republic
Julie Ewango, 57, produces radio shows on reconciliation, tolerance and forgiveness for the conflict that pushed her and her family to flee. Photo: UNHCR/ A. Kitidi/2014.
I was still a student when I started visiting the Central African national radio, in order to record messages about the unity of humanity and the unity of religion, two of the basic principles of my Baha’i faith. When I finished high school, I became one of the “Emperor’s girls”, a group of 15 women recruited as broadcasters by Bokassa, since Radio Centrafrique didn’t have female voices until then. Today, at the age of 57, I’m still working at the same station, producing shows on reconciliation, tolerance and forgiveness – especially after falling victim of my country’s internal strife.
Gunshots had kept us up that night we fled, between the 4 and the 5 December 2013. The people of my neighborhood had started fleeing, afraid of an attack by the Seleka. We knew that they were breaking into houses, looting and killing all the men, after accusing them of being Anti-Balaka. But I decided not to leave my home, where I was staying with my mother and my nephew. I was standing up and waiting, when a crowd of thirty people broke the protective grid and rushed inside.
They behaved like manic ants, grabbing everything that they could find, from the TV and the PC, to my dresses and my plates. Among them, was a guy they called “the Colonel” and they were people asking him to “do the work required by his grade”. They were essentially demanding that he kills us. But we were spared, since we didn’t resist.
When they left, I went outside and sat at the veranda. I saw a Paul, alone, passing by. He greeted me and told me to forget all that had happened. “It’s like spilled water”, he proclaimed. “You cannot put it back inside the jar. But take your family and leave, mama, because the people that are coming next are going to kill you.” I realized he was dead serious. So I fled to the church St Charles Luanga.
Now, having found a new home, I don’t have any feeling of revenge towards my aggressors. Revenge is like a vicious circle that inhibits peace. We were always living together and we depend on each other for our daily subsistence.
