Saving Robert from human sacrifice
A team of Aussie heroes has brought a young boy all the way from Uganda to Australia, to reverse the crippling effects of a spinal injury sustained in a suspected child sacrifice ritual. Samantha Trenoweth meets Robert in Newcastle, where this courageous
Robert Mukwaya is a 10-year-old Ugandan boy who wants, more than anything, to fly like a bird. On his plane ride to Australia, he decided that, when he grows up, he wants to be a pilot, but first he must learn to walk on his own two legs again. Three years ago, a violent attack left Robert with a spinal injury which paralysed his legs and severely restricted the mobility of his hands. Yet now, thanks to an Australian charity and an extraordinary team of doctors, nurses and physiotherapists at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, both of Robert’s dreams just might come true.
“He’s a very patient boy,” says Babra Nambooze, his carer, who has travelled with him all the way from Kyampisi in Uganda. “There is an orange tree in the garden here at the house where we’re staying in Newcastle and after the operation, when his legs were in plaster, he would say, ‘It won’t be long until I can run and pick an orange from that tree and bring it to you’ ... He can’t do that yet, but he will walk again.”
Robert has learnt patience the hard way. His father left not long after Robert was born and his mother was diagnosed with a chronic mental illness that rendered her unable to cope. Robert has been cared for by his grandmother, who lives in a village called Masiko, not far from Lake Victoria in south-eastern Uganda.
On June 3, 2014, Robert was snoozing in his grandmother’s kitchen. It was Martyrs’ Day and Robert’s grandmother had gone to church. Like more than 80 per cent of Ugandans, she is a Christian and she takes her faith seriously. That morning, she had left Robert to take care of the household chores and his cousin, Patrick, to keep an eye out for monkeys, which like to plunder the family vegetable patch.
With his chores largely complete, Robert curled up in the kitchen for a nap. According to Shelin Kasozi from Kyampisi Childcare Ministries, the organisation which eventually took on Robert’s care, a man entered the house, covered the boy’s mouth so he couldn’t make a noise and carried him outside to the yard. There, he attacked Robert with a sharp object, inflicting a deep wound to his neck. Fortunately, a passing neighbour startled the attacker, who fled into the forest. The neighbour found Robert, semi-conscious, lying in a pool of blood. The manner in which he was attacked has led Shelin and others to believe that Robert was the victim of a child sacrifice ritual.
In recent years, accusations of witchcraft, sorcery and child sacrifice have become more common in Uganda.
“The practice is unlawful,” says
Rodney Callanan from Droplets In A Stream, the Australian charity which brought Robert here for surgery, “but due to extreme poverty, ignorance and fear, it is persisting. People are led to believe that if they sacrifice a child, their businesses will prosper or their health will improve, so they take this drastic and evil step based on greed and the belief that they will not be caught.”
Traditional healers, shamen and herbalists still operate in Uganda, but they are not the perpetrators, says Rodney. “They’re sham witch doctors,” he says. “They are doing this for financial gain. They use human blood and body parts in their rituals, often a genital or an ear or a piece of bone from the skull ... The majority of their victims die.”
The scale of the problem is unclear, with conflicting reports by government departments, aid agencies, church groups and academics. Police records show 10 reported cases of child sacrifice in 2013, nine in 2014 and seven in 2015. Six cases were reported in the lead-up to last year’s Ugandan general election. Rodney suggests that numbers may be somewhat higher and other charities have made claims in excess of 100 cases per year.
However, academics working in Africa caution that these reports are not always reliable. “Many aid agencies and Christian groups have been raising funds by making exaggerated claims,” says Professor Tim Allen, head of the Department of International Development at The London School of Economics and Political Science. “I am not saying that child sacrifice is impossible in Uganda or in other parts of the world. Nor am I saying that Ugandan children are never treated in dreadful ways. There are many very sad stories ... However, the child sacrifice panics are overblown. Actual cases of child sacrifice are very rare ... and all the child sacrifice stories I have looked into have been nonsense.”
It matters little whether Robert was one of those rare cases or whether he was the victim of some other form of violent attack. In either instance, his injuries were devastating.
Initially, Robert was treated at a local hospital, which stopped the bleeding, but operated on his neck wound inexpertly. It was at this point that Kyampisi Childcare Ministries intervened and had him transferred to the general hospital in the capital, Kampala. When he arrived, Robert was unconscious, suffering from anaemia, acute pneumonia, malaria and critical trauma. The hospital treated these conditions, but was unable to reverse the spinal damage which had cost him the use of one hand and both of his legs.
That’s when the team of Australians stepped in. Dr
John Christie is a Newcastle-based neurosurgeon who has worked with Kyampisi Childcare Ministries before. “It began with one operation,” he explains. “There was a boy who had part of his skull missing and I operated on him.” Now Dr Christie travels to Uganda annually to perform life-saving surgeries. On one of those visits, he met Robert and realised that he would have to travel outside Uganda to receive the medical help he needed.
Back in Newcastle, Dr Christie approached Dr Sandeep Tewari, a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon, who agreed to operate on Robert’s legs. A team of nurses and other therapists donated its time and John Hunter Hospital offered to waive the other costs of Robert’s care. Droplets In A Stream organised visas and raised funds to cover travel costs. Rodney Callanan approached South African Airways and Virgin Australia, who came on board with free flights and a suitcase packed with toys and clothes. Meanwhile,
Dr Christie and his wife, Dr Kathryn James, a psychologist, made room for Robert and Babra’s three-month stay at their hilltop home, north of Newcastle.
The injury to Robert’s spinal cord had led to the contraction of muscles in his legs and hips. His legs were locked into a “scissoring effect” and his feet were flexed into a tiptoe position which made it impossible for him to stand. “We used plasters to stretch his calf muscles,” Dr Tewari explains, “and surgery to release the contraction of the inner thigh muscles to enable him to open his legs. We put him in a plaster while everything healed and he now wears splints, called gravity assisted AFOs [ankle-foot orthotics], to hold the foot up, so he can walk with his heel on the ground.” Robert has recently begun walking steadily with the aid of a walker and taken his first unassisted steps.
Had Robert not been picked up by Kyampisi Childcare Ministries and treated by Dr Tewari and his team, he would never have walked again. He would also have been unable to attend school or earn a living. And, according to Babra, the victims of suspected child sacrifice attacks are often unwelcome in their families and villages for fear that they’ve been cursed. In Uganda, a country without a national health scheme and with limited public welfare, Robert would very likely have died young and homeless.
Now, however, his future looks bright. Back home in Uganda, Robert is staying at Kyampisi Childcare Ministries’ rehabilitation centre, where he is receiving regular physiotherapy. Dr Tewari has promised to sponsor the boy’s education, so he will also go to school. “For a kid who completes school in Uganda,” Rodney Callanan says, “the opportunities are immense because many can’t. Robert has now been promised an education and if he can get back on his legs as well, the world will be his oyster.”
“The world will be his oyster.”