Lord's Resistance Army Insurgency

Uganda / Central Africa · 1987–ongoing

"Come close, but come with care; this story has children in it, and the fire must not turn their pain into spectacle."

Northern Uganda was already bruised by war and mistrust when Joseph Kony gathered the remains of spirit rebellion, Acholi grievance and his own violent prophecy into the Lord's Resistance Army.

The lesson the elders kept: No cause remains righteous when it survives by stealing children. Justice must name commanders clearly, yet still make room for the broken lives they fashioned into weapons.

Jelikan · Ìtàn · A story is told at night

Sit by the fire.
The griot remembers.

244 tellings from the African Conflict Atlas, every one carried in the griot's own voice — empires and uprisings, taxes and stools, gold roads and broken promises. Told the way a griot tells them: by voice, by lesson, by question.

“A story, a story!”

32 fires burn through the year →

Choose a thread

What shall the fire hear tonight?

Tonight

All time

1200 CEToday

— and the circle answers: “Let it come, let it go.”

Sit by the fire.The griot remembers.

What shall the fire hear tonight?

Sit by the fire.
The griot remembers.