At around 5:00pm on May 13, 1980, 16-year-old Yona Phiri stepped on a landmine while walking home from school. Exactly 28 years and 7 months later, Yona brought me to visit the location where this fateful event took place. The following are his words.
“After knocking off from school, I decided to use the rail track here. There was a road coming from that side joining the rail track. I wanted to use these rails to control my steps, because it’s a little faster than using the road. I was about to join the rail tracks, before I could get onto them, somewhere here.
At the time, the freedom fighters of Zimbabwe came here waiting for the train to Livingstone. It’s believed that landmines were left as they were going. Before I could reach this side, I stepped on something there. Upon lifting my leg, there was a deafening explosion. I was thrown into the air, and upon reaching the ground, there was smoke all over this place. 
And then what I did was to run. I had to run with one leg while holding the leg which was injured to that corner where there’s a parked vehicle. Immediately my friends who saw me were all frightened. And since the explosion was too big, it was heard by the paramilitary camp nearby. They rushed to the scene to find out what had happened, and eventually found that I was lying there in a pool of blood. 
Then one of my schoolmates rushed back to call the teachers, who came to find the policemen and paramilitary officers surrounding me there and arranged a vehicle immediately. I was picked up and taken to the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. I call this a black spot because this is where the course of my life was changed. My dreams, my aspirations and all that I hoped to achieve were changed.
I was first taken from the black spot to Jack Compound where my place is, where my parents were called to come and see me. They found me lying in the Land Cruiser unconscious, and my mother wanted to start weeping, but she was stopped, “no, just get in the car, your son is dying.” 
Unfortunately, the hospital personnel were on strike that day, so there was not much attention given to my case. They could cut the nerves and tie knots to try to stop the blood, but still this did not work. Finally, they said no, the leg is completely crushed, there is no other treatment we can do apart from amputating the limb, cutting it off. When I woke up, I was told, “you have lost your leg.” I couldn’t believe it. I tried to touch my left leg, I found that it was there, but the right one wasn’t there. Then I collapsed, I fell into a coma for three weeks, because I couldn’t believe it.
After some time I was revived by the doctors and helped by the psycho-social counselors to cope with the trauma, because it was something unbelievable. At the tender age of 16 years, having now a life of one leg. I don’t even know how to explain it, because it was totally beyond my acceptance. Because it was too early for me. After what I used to do with my friends, I could play football, I could run here and there, maybe we would go into one of these bushes to hunt birds with catapults. It took me time to accept it, to accept ownership, to accept that I was no longer able to play football, to do what my friends were able to do. 
This is the story which happened to me, Yona Phiri, Zambian landmine survivor. This was on 23 May 1980 and it happened around 17:00 hours.”
Yona Phiri is now a certified welder with his own business in Lusaka. He has a wife and two daughters. Recently, he founded the Zambia Foundation for Landmine Survivors to advocate for the concerns of landmine survivors and persons with disabilities in Zambia.
1 comment:
It's a moving story.
You able bodied people! Where ae you?
If louis can do this, you can also do it.
There is nothing impossible!
Joel
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