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Like most amputee
victims, Sheih Mansaray, a baker and farmer, doesn't seek revenge. "God
will judge," he said. |
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Like many people, Samson
M. Bah lost everything he owned.
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The
4000 Surviving Sierra Leone Amputee War Victims
While
filming in Sierra Leone for several months during 2006 -- our most
recent trip to Sierra Leone -- four
years after the official end of the war, we met many amputees: at the
new JOJ Amputee Resettlement (which is on the outskirts of Freetown),
in
Freetown itself, and in Kabala. Many basic needs were lacking.
What we
witnessed and were
told (in many interviews) was that the amputee war victims have been
cast aside and forgotten, and often are left to beg on the streets.
At the
JOJ Resettlement, they were missing basic necessities: pain
killers, medical facilities, and basic sanitary conditions.
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They
have lost their jobs. Their normal lives have been disrupted. And
consequentially they have problems with their families.
Besides
the psychological trauma they suffer, they have no work, no
money, and no one who assists them. Their situations are
among the most depressing that we encountered in Freetown.
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Fina
Dabo watched her daughter's hand get severed, before they cut hers. |
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Shot
many
times and left for dead, Bala Koroma points to some bullet wounds. His
chest is riddled with marks from bullets. They even crippled his hand
with bullets.
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Rebels
wanted to burn this man, Masiru Koroma. He escaped. But not before he
was shot, and his hands were mangled when they tried to chop them off. |
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Once wounded,
the victims often had to survive 10 days or more in the bush with
little or no food and no medical treatment. Many didn't survive.
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Jancu
Sessei. When they cut off his hands, they told him it was because he
had voted. Rebels said that they would send amputated hands to the
president of Sierra Leone. |
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Alaghi
Lamin is the head of the JOJ Amputee Resettlement. He has a family to
support.
"They said, 'Cut off both hands, put them in a bag, bring the bag to
the commanding officer, so you get more promotions.'"
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Sahr M.
Tarawallie was
shot in the leg, which had to be amputated. |
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The Sierra
Leone One Legged Amputee Football Club took a creative approach to
their problems. They play football to make some money. Although it's
still not easy for them.
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There are many more worthy
projects. To call attention, we continue here then on subsequent pages.
Follow sequentially or click on the navigational icons above
and left.
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Six months
before these
photos and the xray, she fell from a tree. They lack enough money for
the treatment.
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She's
eight months pregnant.
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The
baby girl shields her eyes from the stone fragments. Her mother is
pregnant. |
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left of a shoe. |
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"Believe
Your Bones"
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A
typical stone crusher's injury. They use a certain grass -- an African
medicine -- as an antiseptic. Fly maggots can be very dangerous. |
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Entire
valleys are busy all day long cutting stones in many sizes, to feed the
building boom in Sierra Leone. The only tools they have to crush the
stones are hammers. They live in the street, and they have entire
families to feed by crushing stones. Sometimes the whole family helps
to crush the stones. "BUB" (Believe your Bones) is the motto
of a
stone crusher settlement in Freetown. "No drugs, no alcohol, just
work," they say. There are more countries than Sierra Leone where
people do this for a living.
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