By: Mohamed Sahr
In an effort of having a first-hand storyline about minority and conflict related communities on issues of inclusive journalism and peace building in Sierra Leone organized by Minority Rights Group Africa (MRGA) through the umbrella of Minority Rights Group International (MRGI) in collaboration Media Reform Coordinating Group Sierra Leone (MRCG-SL) with funding from the European Union (EU) under the Engaging Media and Minorities to Act for Peace Building (EMMAP) Programme, a team of journalists from Sierra Leone, Ghana and Senegal went on an embedded investigation at the Amputee Camp in Kenema, the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone and the Grafton Amputee Camp in the Western Area Rural.
Owing to this, before the end of the eleven years’ civil war in Sierra Leone, several peace talks were held in order for the country to have a new dawn with the key focus on unity, rehabilitation, freedom and justice especially for war-wounded victims.
Prominent among them are the 1999 Lomé Peace Agreement and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act of 2000 which serve as an eye-opener for war-wounded women, children and men thereby assuring them of their wellbeing as well to participate in decision making spheres in post-conflict Sierra Leone.
For a disclosure reason, it seems that only the beautiful lines and documents are gazetted and placed in the shelves forgetting that these documents should be implemented in order to live to the promise of the agreement. Sincerely, if these recommendations are taken for granted, they would wind the clock and live as happy as the word itself but again that is the reverse.
34-year-old Saibatu Kallon, an amputee at the Norwagian Resettlement Home in Kenema the Eastern province of Sierra Leone explained her predicament from the time she was amputated. By then, being a young girl who could not understand anything about war as well not knowledgeable to differentiate a soldier and a rebel faced a precarious situation. At one time, she heard a gunshot and quickly ran into a house for safety where she eventually closed the door. Sadly, for her, she was dragged out of the room and taken to an open field where she was ambushed by rebels. One of the rebels whom she recalled by the name of Momodu Sandy took her as his wife. Momodu and his team took her into an old farm house there she was accused of aiding and abetting the soldiers. At that moment, she was stripped naked by a female rebel called Musu. This was what she said ‘’I was raped, chopped back with a machete as well as my neck. My head was chopped and cut off my leg. Some of the rebels were stepping on by stomach and I began to defecate constantly.’’
Being through all these difficult times without having proper medication, Saibatu has given birth to four children as a single mother. Their father has died some years ago. Life has been tough for her and her children. Most time she has to beg to fend for her family. The children have abandoned her. These children have even resorted to bad conducts such smoking and gambling without better monitoring and career counselling. Many of them have become dropouts and they are living in the streets.
Baindu Morie, who was amputated in a small village in Kenema District during the war in 1992, has got seven children with the absent of parental care and support. She finds it difficult to cater for their needs. Her only source of living is begging people. She has to beg for more than a month in order to buy a single bag of rice. Unlike Saibatu, Baindu’s husband works in the farm just to have something to keep their home going. Both of them have not got any formal education and for them to help the children with basic school materials have become a difficult threat to them. They live on a single meal a day. ‘’Our children no more stay with us and we do not know where they are,’’ Baindu admitted.
Jeremiah Gbetu was a promising school boy at the age of fourteen when the war broke his village in 1994. Whiles going to school in the morning hours, Jeremiah and his colleagues bumped into a bomb attack where his three friends got charred from the fluidity of the bomb and died in a split-second. Suddenly, he fell into the fragment of the bomb and his leg got damaged. When lying in pain in a deep drainage, he saw dogs having a banquet on the remains of his friends. Luckily for him, he was rescued by the Red Cross International and taken to the hospital for two years without seeing none of his parents. That was how he survived and he is now a father of two children. However, life has become hard for him and his children. Jeremiah has seen begging as the only source of living.
Shekuba Kuyateh is a 48-year-old war-wounded victim living in the Grafton Amputee Camp in Western Rural of Freetown. He takes the full advantage to explain the sad moment he underwent at the height of war in Freetown. His limb was cut off when the rebels attacked the city. His friends Alpha Jalloh and Ibrahim Conteh at one time entered into an ambush where the rebels cut their limbs separately. Today, this has painted a mental scar in their minds. The suffering has sent most of their wives into an early grave leaving many children away.
Regardless of the bitter experiences being faced, most often than not, they have made an effort to change the course of their unpleasant choice but it has proven effortless.
Notwithstanding, Article twenty-eight of clause one and two of the 1999 Lome Peace Agreement provides that there should be post-war rehabilitation and reconstruction for war-wounded victims.
It also emphasizes that the government should provide appropriate financial support in the form of pension and technical resources for post-war rehabilitation, reconstruction and development.
Adding that special attention should be accorded to women who have been victimized during the war, through the formulation and implementation of programmes in order to enable to them as key players in the social and physical reconstruction of the country.
However, they believe that all of these needs are not forthcoming. Therefore, they are urging the government of Sierra Leone and other international partners to help in all of these action plans.
