Unfinished Stories: From Genocide to Hope

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I also had to transfer a group of Sena Chuns who were sick to a hospital on the way, around fifty kilometres away. Two Sena Chuns, who were not sick, accompanied me on the trip. We left at around 5 am and reached the first hospital at 6 pm. A thirteen hour trip, walking non-stop. One sick Sena Chun got cramp in his leg and he fell into three-metre-tall grass. I gave him water and massaged his leg until his cramp disappeared. I got fever during the walk although I took some French preventive medicine. When we reached the hospital, a colleague set up a drip for me. In early morning, I was feeling OK and asked my colleague how many ampoules of quinine were used. He said two. Actually, the right treatment is only one ampoule, but my colleague said that because I needed to walk another fifty kilometres the next day, he needed to make sure that I would not get fever again. I saw lots of patients who had been injured and asked what had happened. My colleague told me that over the last several days, military trucks had brought many patients to Namsap for hospitalisation. Just a few kilometres from the camp, a truck hit a landmine, and people were thrown high into the air. Many were dead and the others injured. One of the injured patients had a broken backbone, from which he would surely die as there was no specialised treatment available for him.

to a village, I heard the sound of a baby crying as people were working in the rice fields. I cried, as I missed my children a lot. When we reached Ampil Doeun, we bought chicken to make soup, and we had lunch. It was the first time in six months that we had had a real meal. My hair was half way down my back as it had not been cut. My beard was also very long. We left the village and continue to walk to Bavel District, which we reached around 5 pm. I hired a moto taxi to go home, which was another fifty kilometres away. I reached home around 7 pm. When I saw my wife, I could not say a word. I just cried. Fortunately, our daughter had recovered after receiving treatment at the hospital. Two weeks later, I fell into a coma because of malaria. I was taken to hospital for ten days and I got a quinine drip every day. I eventually woke up. I did not go back to the camp as the mission was almost ended.

Together with two other Sena Chuns, I left the hospital very early before sunrise. We reached Namsap at 6:30 pm, having stopped only fifteen minutes for lunch. My feet were swollen and after lunch I could hardly stand due to the pain. But I had to walk, anyway. We stayed in Namsap for a night and left the next morning on another twenty-five-kilometre walk. Along the way, and close

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