At a small, sun-drenched home in Ikapolok village, Teso Subcounty, the silence is a breathing agony, a stark contrast to the dedication that once defined the man who now exists only as a fading photograph.

Five months have passed since the last fragmented call, when Milcah Wangila spoke with Oscar Mutoka, her husband of 17 years. Mutoka, a 39-year-old father of three and former military man, had barely been gone three months—driven across continents by the desperate hope for greener pastures in Russia—when he suddenly vanished from all communications.