Where is Dr Lina Zedriga Waru Abuku, deputy president of Uganda’s largest and most prominent opposition party, the National Unity Platform (NUP)? Until recently, she served as the party’s acting president and was a daily presence in the media. Then, suddenly, she fell silent. Now social media is rife with speculation about the whereabouts of the lawyer, internationally recognised human rights advocate and feminist reformer.

I have met Lina several times, in Berlin and in Uganda. Over time, I came to know the woman behind the public figure: deeply intelligent, guided by her faith and with a warmth that many experience as maternal. A friendship grew from those encounters. That is why her silence did not feel abstract to me. At the beginning of this year, I wrote about her for the Berliner Zeitung after she had disappeared. On election night, masked members of Uganda’s military security forces had abducted her from her home. For three weeks, no one knew where she was being held — or whether she was still alive.

When things once again went quiet around her in July, I began following the few clues available. Then, unexpectedly, I managed to reach her through a secret phone. She invited me to visit her at a location that could not be disclosed. Before I set off, Lina had one surprisingly ordinary request:

"Please bring me some wool to crochet with — black, red and yellow."

And so I set out with a generous supply of wool in my luggage: from Berlin via Brussels to Kinshasa. From the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, taking a domestic flight to Bunia, continuing northwards in a small propeller aircraft, and finally travelling the last kilometres along a badly washed-out dirt road. As I drew closer, the landscape opened into grass and shrub savannah, far from the dense “Congo jungle” many Europeans imagine. At the end of the road stood a small Catholic mission station.

In the remote border regions of the north, the contours between states blur. Across small, unguarded paths, the exchange of the local population has always flowed effortlessly—a topography that, far away from the major checkpoints, also offers the perfect retreat for someone who needs to remain hidden. For Lina Zedriga, this area is no unfamiliar terrain: she hails precisely from this border region, knowing the paths and the people well. Here, where small-scale border trade shapes daily life, she finds a sense of familiar refuge and relative seclusion despite the ongoing threat. When I met her in this remote region, she greeted me with the following words:

"Now you can find me somewhere, but I am not nowhere."

For now, this modest outpost is her refuge: a few low buildings with corrugated iron roofs gathered around a chapel, a garden and a well. Chickens wander across the yard, and a generator rattles into life whenever the electricity fails. Voices from a radio switch almost effortlessly between Lingala, Lugbara, French and, occasionally, English.

Sunlight falls through an open window onto a wooden table covered with balls of wool, crochet hooks, scarves and bags in the colours of Uganda. A crucifix hangs on the wall. Mama Lina smiles.

"At the moment, I am a nomad — for my own safety. I have stepped back for a while. I am doing this for my family, my friends and all those I love, and who love me."

Only a few weeks ago, the 64-year-old lawyer stood at the helm of the NUP, after party leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (Bobi Wine) left Uganda following grave threats to his life. Juggling formal engagements, speeches, journeys, and immense responsibilities so soon after the trauma of detention took a heavy toll.

Across Uganda, people affectionately call her “Mama Lina” because she has spent her life mediating conflicts and advocating non-violence. Even when speaking about those who caused her suffering, she refuses to surrender to hatred, believing that forgiveness means refusing to allow injustice to rule one’s heart.

Yet the wounds remain: tinnitus, sleepless nights, and the constant feeling of being followed. After receiving a serious warning of another potential abduction, she decided to leave Uganda. The danger is real; recently, her Google account was compromised and linked smartphones were disabled in an apparent attempt to trace her.

"One time in the basement is enough," she says, using a word Ugandans associate with secret torture sites. m"What happened there will remain with me for the rest of my life. I cannot put my family, my friends or myself through that again." Her withdrawal is not an act of surrender, but a decision to stay alive:

"If you want to keep hope alive, you need to remain alive — not for selfish reasons, but in order to continue."

To continue serving, speaking, and eventually returning to stand with those who have no protection.

At the mission station, Lina does not simply wait. Friends send her yarn whenever they can, and she crochets. "Crocheting is therapy for me," she explains. "When my hands are working, my thoughts become calmer. I am creative. I am alive. I can see something new taking shape from a single thread. That gives me a sense of security and a vision of the future."

She also works in the garden, prays, and leans deeply on her faith:

"God has not abandoned me. Mother Mary guides me, even when I cannot yet see where the road will lead."

She is deeply grateful to the brothers and sisters who shelter and protect her at personal risk.

Whether Lina Zedriga will remain in the Congo, return to Uganda, or move elsewhere is uncertain. "The sky is the limit," she says with a mischievous smile. "At the moment, I am a vagabond."

Beneath the light-hearted words lies a much darker reality facing her homeland. Across Uganda, a silent exodus is taking place. People with critical minds, diverse political ideas, and independent voices are systematically locked up, harassed, or forced to flee. The country’s intellectual lifeblood is draining away; anyone with a public platform or an alternative vision now lives in constant danger.

Yet Zedriga views this unsustainable repression as the very reason why change is ultimately inevitable. A nation cannot simply bleed out its brightest minds forever without collapsing under the weight of its own tyranny. Philosophical and steadfast, she insists that such a system has an expiration date because a society cannot permanently silence its own heartbeat.

"We have tried through the National Unity Platform. We have stood in two elections," she says. "But those in power do not permit genuine political competition. They interfere, persecute critical voices and attempt to eliminate every form of opposition." Though ordinary grassroots members face fierce repression, Zedriga remains convinced that the desire for freedom cannot be extinguished.

"I want to see Uganda become truly free and shine again as the Pearl of Africa," she says. "If we do not achieve it for ourselves, then we must continue for our children and grandchildren. I believe it is possible. Hope has never died in me."

On the table before her, another piece grows slowly, stitch by stitch. Black, yellow and red — the colours of Uganda.

Outside, a motorcycle passes over the red earth, its engine fading into the distance. Lina Zedriga lowers her eyes to her hands and makes the next stitch.

It is a quiet reminder that resistance does not always have to be loud. Sometimes freedom begins with a single thread.