Adolphine and Sepano had been living in fear for most of their two and a half years of marriage. Every day, news reached them, of friends and fellow Kasai people being killed in and around Lubumbashi where they lived.

Like most of the Kasai people, Sepano and his wife supported Étienne Tshisekedi, who led the UDPS (the French acronym for the Union for Democracy and Social Progress), and they were being cruelly persecuted by Mobutu Sese Seko's regime. Part of the young couple's daily routine was to place bottles of paraffin, matches and a metal bar at the door as protection. Children still played, carefree, outside their homes, unaffected by the growing alarm of the adults who knew they were targets in the escalating armed conflict between the UDPS and pro-Mobutu rebel groups.

All seemed peaceful on the cold and rainy night in December 1996 when they finally came. Adolphine doesn't remember the date or day of the week, but strangely enough recalls that she was wearing a blue kitenge, a type of sarong, with a floral pattern. She was chatting to Sepano whilst preparing supper. Their sixteen month old baby, Ilunga, was trying to crawl on the floor next to them.

Sudden menacing sounds outside caused husband and wife to look at each other in terror. “Oh my God, we are dead!” Adolphine uttered. Fifty or more men – rebels and Mobutu's soldiers, all dressed in combat uniform – stood cheek by jowl in the back of a truck when it screeched to a halt outside their house. Sepano knew they were after him. In a flash he ran to the back of the house and escaped through a window.

Confused and utterly afraid, Adolphine gathered her baby in her arms and called her five year old brother Joseph, who lived with them and was playing outside the back of the house. Just then some of the men burst into the couple's home. Others remained outside.

“I couldn't look in their eyes”, she recalls. “I wet myself, I was so scared that I was about to be raped and my child and brother murdered.”