“Five assailants arrived and three of them raped me. The other two looted the house. They took all the loot to the forest with them. They imprisoned my children and they burned the houses in the village before taking us to the forest. When they found other women, they brought these women to the forest and said that we were not beautiful. I escaped but I couldn’t find anyone from my village because it had been burned. I don’t even know if my children and husband are alive. I don't know where I will go since I have no house.” “When the assailants attacked us I was pregnant with my husband's baby. They beat my husband and then three of them raped me. After that I continued to bleed and I had a stillbirth. They burnt my house and everything in it. Now I have nothing.” “My husband and I were in bed. The soldiers arrived and started to rape me. My husband asked them why they were doing this and they killed him. Since then, I have not had a house because they burned it.” “They came to pillage and they pillaged everything in my house, leaving with the livestock, the clothes and other valuables. Then two assailants raped me one after the other. Since that time I have a lot of discomfort all over my body. I hope that I am not infected.” THEME: SPOUSAL ABANDONMENT Spousal abandonment as a result of the sexual violence was not infrequent. Loss of one’s husband was often very distressing to sexual violence survivors. Some women described hiding the sexual violence from family members because they feared abandonment. “It was one night in March that the three assailants entered our house. Two assailants pillaged while the other one raped me. At this time my husband was on a trip to Burega. When he returned, my husband was told what happened. He abandoned me and returned to Burega, saying that he does not want a woman who has been raped. Unfortunately, after the rape, I was already pregnant”. “I was sleeping when they arrived. The assailants raped me immediately and then they took me to the forest for many years. They would not let me leave. But, by divine grace, I finally managed to escape. However, this is what disturbs me: my husband said that he did not want to share my body. He left because of anger over these incidents and now he is married to another woman elsewhere.” “The assailants arrived at my house, beat me, and threatened to sleep with me. They said if I did not agree, they would kill me. When I resisted, they took me to the forest where I became their ‘femme.’ After being taken to the forest, my husband abandoned me. I gave birth to a child who did not belong to my husband.” 30