What if you were held captive by child soldiers?

Whit Missildine· Host0:00

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of This Is Actually Happening ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. Hi, listeners. Today's episode requires a little background and context. The first part of the story takes place in South Africa during apartheid in the nineteen fifties through the nineteen seventies, and most of the second half of the story takes place in Mozambique in the nineteen eighties, which was at the time in the midst of a civil war. So I'd like to spend a few minutes here giving a very rough overview of the context of South Africa and Mozambique at the time, so it will be more clear what Dave, our storyteller, is referring to. In the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, both South Africa and Mozambique were part of the larger decolonization of Africa, with South Africa gaining full independence from Britain in nineteen sixty-one and Mozambique gaining independence from Portugal in nineteen seventy-five. However, in the decolonization process, both were thrown into proxy battles between old structures clinging to power and the larger global Cold War between communist and capitalist superpowers. South Africa, even after independence, was still ruled by a white minority government under the National Party. The National Party was populated mostly by the white ethnic group known as Afrikaners, who spoke a language called Afrikaans. The National Party instituted apartheid,