Abia Boys and the LRA – Oyeyeng Productions Limited

Abia Boys and the LRA (Coming soon)

This documentary film provides a window for the people of Abia sub county in Alebtong District of the Lango subregion of northern Uganda to tell the world the tragic stories of the LRA massacre that took place in in Abia Internally Displaced People’s camp on 4th February 2004. On that day, a band of 300 LRA Rebels pretending to be Uganda People’s Defense Forces soldiers attacked civilians in Abia IDP Camp, allegedly killing 52 people (although that figure has been contested upwards by some) and wounding many others. Many wounded civilians died from their injuries wherever they fled. Some of the artists fled to Lira Town and other parts of Lango. The Massacre did not only leave smouldering heaps of huts with charred bodies and musical instruments; but it also left the Abia music and dance industry in ruins.

The film provides a robust histopathology of the LRA insurgency and the need for emotional healing and reparative intervention in Abia. The documentary film examines the memories of marginalised survivors of the Abia Massacre as counter memory of the war in aesthetic vehicles of remembrance such as the people’s own oral poetry, songs, dance and theatre performances, and how they negotiate for space on the canvas of heritage construction dominated by hegemonic state narratives or foreign vehicles of memory and remembrance. This film therefore, focused on the devastating impact of the Abia Massacre on the artistic communities of Abia and how they try to make sense of the senseless through the aesthetic afterlives of war.