“All you can do is pray to God.”

Didier Asumani, safer being a soldier (Redemption Songs No. 10)

Kidnapped at 13 and forced to join a rebel army, Didier Asumani could see his chances of survival were slim carrying ammunition to soldiers during battle. He figured he would be safer carrying a gun.
He chose to be a soldier.

He became very proficient at killing.

“They gave me a gun, and I used it,” he said. “I killed a lot of people. It must be more than 50. I didn’t like to kill. But if our commander gave an order to kill someone and you didn’t do it, you would be killed by the commander.”

Didier was abducted from his school by one of the most vicious militias, the FDLR, which was fighting to control the province of North Kivu in eastern Congo.

“They wanted us to be rebels like them,” he said.

His unit had about 500 soldiers. Nearly a third of them were boys, and the youngest was 12, he said. Most of the boys were ordered to carry supplies and resupply the fighters with bullets during combat.

He witnessed the brutality of the rebel leaders early. When his unit seized a village, the commander ordered Didier’s friend, Garcon, to kill one of his own relatives. Garcon refused, and the commander shot him dead.

Didier said he was fortunate that the commander didn’t order him to kill Garcon because he would have refused and would have been killed, too.

The commander, he said, “was a very bad person.”

In the camp, he said, the boys were beaten daily and their only way to get food was to steal it from villagers. Civilians who refused to hand over their goods were shot.

“When they resisted and we wanted to loot something from them, we had no choice but to kill them,” he said. “But first, we would ask them if they could give us something.”

During one firefight, Didier was shot in the right thigh, but the wound was not deep.

Two years ago, he fought against government forces during an intense three-day battle. With his unit on the verge of defeat and his comrades fleeing into the jungle, he surrendered. He was 15.

“Everyone ran away to save themselves,” he said. “When I saw I was about to be killed, I put my arms and my gun over my head.”

His captors saw he was a child and handed him over to MONUSCO, the U.N. mission to stabilize Congo. He was brought to a rehabilitation center in Bukavu and eventually offered the chance to learn welding.

“I was very happy to come and join the training,” he said. “It was another chance for me. I was able to take a bath and have some clothes.”

Now 17, he has graduated and is working at a welding shop.

“It’s a good job,” he said. “I am able to support myself.”

He is philosophical about what happened to him.

“Things happen that you can’t control,” he said. “All you can do is pray to God.”

This story is part of the series Redemption Songs produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting, an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in the San Francisco Bay Area, in partnership with Medium.

The series was edited by Robert Salladay and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee. Reporter Richard C. Paddock can be reached at rpaddock@cironline.org. Photographer Larry C. Price can be reached at lcprice@mac.com.

The nonprofit Eastern Congo Initiative provided logistical support for this project. It also provides funding for Let Africa Live and ETN.