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Ugandans in Gulu city watched the live stream of the trial of former rebel commander Dominic Ongwen.
They gathered at three separate venues with the hall at St Monica Girls Technical School fully packed with mostly women following the proceedings translated to their local Acholi language.
The ICC office in Kampala is doing the broadcasts at 25 different locations, including the four former camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) where Ongwen is believed to have been in command of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel forces when they were attacked between 2003 and 2004.
One of these venues is Bar-Olik Forest Ward, a camp for internally displaced people just outside Gulu city centre, where most of the residents are people who either could not find their way back home, or thought their families may not take them back perhaps because of the atrocities they committed.
People at the camp have gathered in a tent under a tree to watch the court session. Hundreds of those watching today across the northern region would have been former LRA abductees and even fighters.
In the nearly two decades when the LRA rampaged through the region, thousands of families lost loved ones. Many are still considered missing.
Since 2000, an estimated 25,0000 people have benefited from the provisions of the amnesty law and returned home.
They have been integrated back into the community having gone through Mato Oput – the traditional justice system which focuses on forgiveness and reconciliation.
Related article: Uganda: former LRA commander guilty of war crimes
The LRA remains active in DR Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan where they have continued to loot, murder and abduct people.
ICC warrants of arrest for the leader Joseph Kony and one other top commander are still out.
With BBC
