Dominic Ongwen (born 1975) is a Ugandan former child soldier and former commander of one of the brigades of the Ugandan guerrilla group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). He was detained in 2014 and in 2021 the International Criminal Court convicted him of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, and enslavement. Origins Dominic Okumu Savio (his birth name) was born in the village of Choorum, Kilak County, Amuru district, Northern Uganda around 1975, the fourth son of Ronald Owiya and Alexy Acayo, two schoolteachers living in Paibona. His parents, like most others in Acoliland at the time, gave him a false name and trained him to use it if ever he was abducted, to protect the rest of the family. This name, Ongwen, means "born at the time of the white ant". It was later to become his nom de guerre. Abduction Ongwen was abducted by the LRA as he walked to Abili Primary School in Koro. According to his own testimony this happened in 1988 when he was fourteen. However it has often been reported that he was nine or ten, and also that he was carried by other captives all the way up to the LRA's main military bases because he was 'too little to walk'. When Ongwen's mother heard that he had been kidnapped, she refused to run away with the other villagers saying she was ready to face the rebels. On their return, they found her dead and his father was later found dead too. According to Private Eye, as a child Ongwen tried to escape; when caught he was forced to skin one of the others alive. Later, he had forced female prisoners to beat other prisoners to death, and he presided over death by stoning. Career Once abducted, he underwent initiation ceremonies which included torture and being forced to watch violent rituals of people being killed. He was subsequently indoctrinated under the tutelage of Vincent Otti, while still a child, as an LRA fighter. He then rose within the ranks becoming a major at the age of 18 and brigadier of the Sinia Brigade, one of the four LRA brigades, by his late twenties. Ongwen was a member of the "Control Altar" of the LRA that directs military strategy. Family During his time with the LRA, Ongwen had multiple wives, including Jennifer, Santa (Min Tata), Margaret, Florence Ayot, Agnes Aber (Min