{{A woman kidnapped as a nine-year-old by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels has testified at a summit on ending sexual violence in war.}}
Esther Atim, now 20, described being captured by rebels in Uganda and being subjected to rape and forced labour.
Actress and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, who are co-hosting the London event, were among those present.
The summit is the result of an intense two-year campaign to raise awareness.
{{‘Extraordinary woman’}}
Ms Atim described how she was taken from the village of Ojone, in north-eastern Uganda, in 2003.
She was forced to watch a man hacked to death in front of her and was then kept for three years across the border in Sudan, where she endured repeated rapes.
Eventually she made her escape under cover of darkness.
“I managed to sneak out, I started running, seriously, but I had no energy. I was seriously raped. I couldn’t walk.”
She waved her arms to her sides in a grim illustration of her condition: “My legs were like this. I could not run. I fell down. But I ran and ran and ran.”
{agencies}
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