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| Photos Philip Mark Merthens |
Remember when you first landed here? We held you captive. You thought we were evil, you thought we were bloodthirsty monsters. But what else could we do? The world turned a blind eye, a deaf ear, leaving us to drown in endless suffering. We held you captive not to hurt you, but for one last hope—that the world, through your eyes, would finally see that we existed, that we were dying in our own land.
At first, fear was evident on your faces. But as the days passed, you began to see things you had never imagined before. We, the so-called ‘rebels’, did not point our guns at you. We reached out, tending your wounds, giving you shelter. When the occupying army came, looking for you to finish you off and accusing us of being the perpetrators, we protected you. We, who had lost our children, siblings, and mothers to their bullets, risked our lives to keep you alive.
In this forest, you saw more than just scenery. You saw tears that never stopped falling. You heard the cries of mothers whose children were taken by force, the voices of fathers who no longer had land to cultivate, our voices—a people who were always defeated, dragged to the ground, trampled, but never died. You saw more than war; you saw hearts broken, souls silenced, but never extinguished.
Now, you will go. But not as prisoners. You go as brothers who carry our voices. We embrace you one last time, with hearts filled with hope and sadness. Hope that the world will listen to you, that they will hear our story. Sadness because we know that perhaps after you are gone, nothing will change. The world has long left us in the dark, and we fear that you too will be forgotten, as we have long been forgotten.
But please, do not forget us. Remember every tear that fell in this forest, every hand that healed your wounds, every whisper of complaint you heard in the silence of the night. You have seen for yourself, we are not the criminals they say. We are not rebels who want to destroy. We are human beings who just want to live, want to be free, want to have a future in a land that should be ours.
When you step out of here, we entrust our voices to you. Take this cry to the world. Let them know that here, in a place far from attention, there are people who continue to fight, even though our bodies are broken, even though our voices are silenced. Do not let us disappear without meaning.
Go, our brother. Bring our truth. And if the world still dares to close its eyes, at least you have heard it, at least you know that here, there is a nation that still lives, even though it is shrouded in suffering. Do not forget us. Let this story continue to echo in the sky, until finally the world hears.
Farewell Message for Pilot Philip Mark Merthens
Author: Victor Fredrick Yeimo