The mood at the Kololo Airstrip ‘Independence Grounds’ was electric – long before the arrival of Pope Francis.<br />Youths sang and danced their hearts out as they waited for the 78 year-old Pontiff who is on his second leg of a three-nation inaugural Africa trip.<br /><br />But the mood was rather sombre as two youths – Emmanuel Odokonyero and Winnie Nansumba – took to the microphone to tell the Pope of their tribulations with conflict and the HIV/Aids scourge.<br /><br />Odokonyero was among 41 students who were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in May 2003 from the Sacred Heart Minor Seminary, Lacor.<br /><br />He however managed to live to tell the horror he underwent to Pope Francis on Saturday.<br /><br />“Some of our friends were murdered… I was tortured and they tied my hands behind my back and I failed to breathe. I wanted to ask to be killed than to suffer such a pain. They then untied me and warned me not to escape. By God’s grace, I managed to escape on 11th August 2003 from Namokora Sub-county, Kitgum District,” he told an attentive Pope Francis.
