A STOLEN DREAM (Livre)

Description

It is a reality that has made me, like so many others, a refugee whose existence is summed up by an endless flight, from Rwanda to Congo, and then to Uganda. I have seen the worst of humanity up close, where the Ruzizi River served as a mass grave, where hiding in a trash can was the price to pay to avoid being struck down by a stray bullet. During all those decades, survival was my only goal. Dreaming was a luxury that war had stolen from me. But survival comes at a cost. Even far from the weapons, the sound of the massacres has never stopped echoing in my head. This sound manifests as insomnia, constant fear, and the inability to heal from wounds that I could never afford to have diagnosed. I am writing today because I can no longer remain silent. I am writing not only to unburden myself of the weight of this memory, but out of duty. The world has chosen indifference in the face of a tragedy that has lasted more than three decades, in the face of millions of human beings whose history has been reduced to numbers. This book is a call to humanism. It is an attempt to make you understand what it truly means to be a refugee: the scarcity of hot water and salt, the humiliation of the 2,000 shillings, and the threat that knocks on your door even after you believed you had found safety. My hope is simple: that this testimony breaks the silence and inspires a fight for change. May the world remember that spilled blood destroys memory and creates deep psychological scars that will never disappear. This is not the end of the story. But it is the end of the silence.
Valentin Ngoy