news.com.au
Wednesday August 8, 2018
By: Jamie Seidel
Amanda Lindhout, pictured in 2013 on NBC News' Today show. Photo / Getty
Young reporter Amanda
Lindhout was aware of the risks, but three days after entering Somalia,
she and her friend were seized. She told Andrew Denton of her 15-month
ordeal.
She was just
26 years old. For a young reporter, the job was the opportunity of a
lifetime. But, just days after entering war-ravaged Somalia, Amanda
Lindhout's survival instinct would be pushed beyond all human
boundaries.
Rape. Torture. The reality of death always just centimetres and seconds away.
For 15 months, Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were
brutalised as their increasingly impatient captors demanded ransoms be
paid for their freedom.
Eventually, both were freed. But the soul-searing cruelty of their captivity changed them both.
Lindhout told Andrew Denton on Australian TV channel Seven's Interview
of the excruciating torture she had suffered. But she also related the
moments of beauty, revelation and extraordinary courage that gave her
the strength to survive.
THE MOMENT
Lindhout had simply wanted to tell the stories of those suffering from decades of internal conflict.
"It was a very important story to tell," she told Denton. "Also, as a
young, mostly freelance journalist, it was also an opportunity for me."
She said that she and her friend Brennan went on what they thought was a
one-week work trip to Somalia. "Only we ended up staying."
Lindhout said she was aware of the risks, and thought she had become acclimatised to war-torn lands in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Three days after entering Somalia, on August 23, 2008, she and Brennan were seized.
"Our logistics organiser had told us it was safe to travel outside of
the city," she said. "There was no active fighting we were going to an
internally displaced people's camp. That was going to be the big story
that we were in Somalia for."
So they set out.
"We're on a big open highway road. Somalia is so poor a lot of people
don't even have vehicles," she said. "So we see a car pulled over off to
the side up ahead and because it was the only other vehicle on the road
it right away grabbed our attention. Within minutes, what unfolded was
like something out of a nightmare."
A dozen armed men spread out across the road, pointing AK-47 assault rifles at them
"I couldn't see their faces. Young men in chequered scarfs. So, our
vehicle was forced to stop. They surrounded us, pulled the doors open,
pulled us out … And the next thing I knew I had been abducted."
Their leader, a man calling
himself Adam, demanded Lindhout and Brennan contact their families. He
wanted US$1.5 million ransom — each.
"The Canadian and Australian governments don't pay ransoms," Lindhout
said. "I come from a really poor family. Nigel's family is not wealthy.
And so that began the start of what would be a very long time in
captivity."
CAPTIVATED CAPTORS
Initially, she said, she and Brennan were held together. "That was such
a comfort. To be able to have somebody to talk to, to share the
emotions with."
Her captors were very interested in her and Brennan's stories. They wanted to know about their lives.
But as time drew on, things changed for the worse.
Brennan and Lindhout were separated.
"Almost the day that we were separated, sexual abuse started," she
said. "It was so devastating and so scary. And also as time was passing
the conditions were becoming worse. (It cost) money to feed us and so
the food was becoming less, and our teenage captors … you know, they
were quite resentful."
Lindhout was raped and threatened with death.
"I will talk about it. But it's still … It's … it's that intense it's real," she told Denton.
"That night, they came and woke me up and they brought me out to a car.
They had moved us to a few different houses. I thought maybe that's
what was happening, only they didn't bring Nigel out. So I got really
scared."
They piled into the
car around her, and drove her out into the desert. "I just … I feared
the worst. Abdulla, the one who had been sexually abusing me was
taunting me in the car — 'How does it feel to know you're going to die?'
"They took me out of the car under this tree and pulled my head back. The next thing I knew there was a knife at my throat."
She was forced to call her mother and convince her to pay the ransom within seven days.
Things were now beyond desperate.
"At a certain point, Nigel and I tried and failed to escape."
Lorinda
Stewart, left in white top, mother of former hostage Amanda Lindhout,
pictured in October last year when Lorinda released a book about her
daughter's kidnapping. Photo / Getty
RANDOM ACT OF COURAGE
Five months into their captivity, Lindhout and Brennan managed to loosen the bricks around a window.
"We did manage to jump out a window and we knew there was a mosque
nearby because we could hear the call to prayer," she said. "(We went)
down out of that window and ran a couple of hundred metres, we could see
the mosque. It was right there."
But their captors had noticed their escape. "We were pleading with this roomful of Muslims …"
Then the kidnappers entered the mosque with their guns.
A member of the congregation stepped forward.
"This is the first woman that I
had seen since we had been abducted," Lindhout said. "And she was
dressed in the full Islamic hijab so even her face was covered. I could
just see her eyes. way through the crowded mosque, and she came directly
to me. And she pulled me into her arms and in English she called me her
sister. And then she turns to our kidnappers begging them to let us go.
"
But Abdulla appeared. He grabbed Lindhout, and began dragging her out of the mosque.
"And this woman, she didn't give up and she threw herself, she threw
her body on top of mine and she hung on to me together across that
floor."
But she couldn't hold on. Then, as Lindhout was being driven off, she heard a single gunshot come from inside the mosque.
"I still don't know what happened to that amazing woman, though I've
tried to find out," Lindhout said. "But wow, just even the thought of
her in the months that were to follow and everything that I had to
endure, gave me a lot of strength."
THE LONG DARKNESS
Once back in captivity, Lindhout was locked in a dark room with no windows.
"The darkness has a weight to it," she said. "It was very … It was
heavy and it was oppressive and it was terrifying every moment of the
day. You start to lose track of time. I mean, it was absolutely pitch
black."
There were only rats. Cockroaches. And Abdulla.
"When I had tried to escape and failed, they all felt the way to punish
me was to really hurt me. (I was) listening for the footsteps, and in
the moments in between, just trying to hold onto my sanity."
"I realised that my mind had a lot of power to carry me through those
moments. I realised that I was a lot more than this physical body that
was on the floor. I felt connected to something bigger than myself that
was also part of myself and it actually became quite a spiritual
experience in many ways. Now, that doesn't mean it became easier, it
wasn't, but that helped me so much get through those days."
REVELATONS
"I had a really amazing experience one day when Abdulla was raping me
that I left my body," Lindhout says. "A psychologist would call this a
dissociated state. It probably was that, but it was also something that
felt quite spiritual for me.
"In those dissociated moments … I literally was observing the two of us
on the floor and him on top of me and, you know, I was in such
excruciating pain, that in those detached moments I actually understood
something about him. "
She
said she felt she understood him through his stories of being orphaned,
finding a piece of his aunt's leg after an explosion killed her …
"Surprisingly, what I felt in that
moment was sympathy, compassion for this young man who was on top of
me, hurting me. It felt like relief from all the hatred and anger that I
had held onto so tightly for, you know, the months that had led up to
that moment."
The disassociation helped her get through the rapes.
"It was never just once in a day I would have to go through something
terrible," she said. "It was, you know, consistently, day in and day
out. It didn't get easier to find that understanding and compassion, it
got harder as time went on. But I became more and more determined … if I
could find that (escape), the experience just wouldn't break me."
Eventually the torture became so great that Lindhout decided to end it all.
She had been given a razor to remove all of her body hair. Lindhout felt calm and determined.
Then a door was opened a little. There was light.
"A little bit of movement caught my eye and I look over and there was a
bird hopping around in this little bit of light. He'd flown in … I had
not seen a bird in over a year."
Lindhout said she took it as a sign.
"The desire to end my life left me
and it never came back and this amazing feeling just flooded through my
body, which was determination to survive no matter what."
Eventually, after being sold to another Somali gang, Lindhout and Brennan were freed.
"We had gone from experiencing the worst of humanity … only to come out
and find that we had been rescued by the best of humanity," Lindhout
said. "I mean, quite literally, Australians that did not know Nigel and
I, that had contributed to this ransom fund … for our freedom."
AFTERMATH
When giving a victim impact statement at the trial of one of her
kidnappers earlier this year, Lindhout openly wept. She said she was
left suicidal by her 15 months of captivity. She said she was suffering
severe anxiety. Her behaviour had become anti-social. She has been
diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.
She still wakes up screaming,
"I hit the bottom when I Googled possible ways to end my life
painlessly," Lindhout said from the witness stand. "For years … I
couldn't believe I was free, often sure I was dreaming, and that I would
wake up back in captivity with chains on my ankles in a dark room.
"For many years … I felt dead and that being in the world was an alien
experience. I know the symptom is rooted to a knife being held to my
neck in captivity and believing I was going to die. Flashbacks happen
involuntarily, it's as though I am reliving my experience and I don't
understand it's not happening in real time. It's incredibly scary."
Her scars are not just mental. She also bears a physical burden from her time in Somali prison cells.
Lindhout was tortured and starved. Her digestive system is
"compromised" she said. Her adrenal glands are damaged. Her teeth are a
"broken mess".
But Lindhout says she's now a survivor.
"I have learned a lot about survival and resiliency and the incredible
strength and determination of the humans spirit and, every time I have
the opportunity to share that, there's healing in that for me. I hope
there can be healing in that for other people too," she said.